I 

I 



1 



OVER THE PYRENEES 



INTO 



SPAIN. 



LONDON 

PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. 
NEW-STREET SQUAKE 



OVER THE PYRENEES 

INTO 

SPAIN. 



BY 




MARY EYRE 

it 

AUTHOR OF ' A LADY'S WALKS IN THE SOUTH OF FRANCE. 




LONDON: 

RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 

PUBLISHER IN ORDINARY TO HER MAJESTY. 
1865. 



PEEFACE. 



I have but a few words to say by way of 
preface. The favourable reception accorded to 
£ A Lady's Walks in the South of France ' in- 
duced my publisher, -Mr. Bentley, to suggest 
my taking a similar tour through Andorre and 
the Spanish side of the Pyrenees. 

I have given as graphic an account as I 
could of the marvellously beautiful scenery I 
traversed, and the habits and manners of the 
people who inhabited the country ; but their 
state of semi-civilisation — for even Spain must 
be considered a semi-civilised country, so long 
as a respectable, quietly-dressed woman, walk- 
ing quietly alone, is subject to insult and 
outrage in the streets — rendered it most un- 
pleasant to visit the magnificent palaces and 

a 



Vlll 



PKEFACE. 



churches in her cities ; and absolutely impossible 
to gather the rare and beautiful plants that 
adorn her mountains. Even accompanied by 
a guide, I was yet subjected to hooting and 
insult : simply because I was a stranger. 

The Spanish nation is professedly devote ; 
they forget while professing themselves Chris- 
tians, that hospitality is especially inculcated 
by Christ, and Heaven itself held out as its 
reward : 6 1 was a stranger, and ye took me in.' 

All, therefore, that this little volume can 
claim is to be a lively narrative of the scenes 
I passed through, and the people I met. If 
it meet from £ a discerning public ' as kind and 
generous a reception as its predecessor, I hope, 
ere long, to be once more a candidate for equal 
favour ; and meanwhile, I meekly fold my 
arms, curtsey down to the very ground to the 
audience in pit and boxes, in grateful thanks 
for their favour, and hope the gods — i.e. the 
critics in the gallery— won't hiss me. 



Nov. 9, 1865. 



Mary Eyre. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. THROUGH FRANCE TO THE EASTERN PYRENEES 1 

II. THE EASTERN PYRENEES .... 30 

III. AX 48 

IV. THE VALLEY OF ANDORRE .... 107 
V. SAN JULIA 137 

VI. THE SEU D'URGEL TO CALAF . . . .148 

VII. CALAF TO BARCELONA . . . .196 

VIII. BARCELONA TO MAURESA AND CARDONA. . 226 

IX. BARCELONA TO MADRID . . . .246 

X. MADRID . . . .. . . . 268 

XI. MADRID TO GRANADA . . . .281 

XII. GRANADA AND THE ALHAMBRA . . .295 

XIII. GRANADA. SPANISH MANNERS. THE GENE- 

RALIFE . . . ... . . ■ 311 

XIV. GRANADA TO ALICANTE . . . .322 
XV. ALICANTE TO BARCELONA .... 344 

XVI. BARCELONA TO PERPIGNAN AND PARIS . . 350 



DEDICATION. 



In my Preface I thanked the public for their favourable 
reception of my last book. I dedicate this new one to 
the Friends to whose kind interest much of its success 
was owing. By far the greater number of these were 
the old friends — many the playfellows of my childhood, 
as well as the friends of my maturer years ; but to both 
I owe a deep debt of gratitude, and wishing to express my 
thanks equally to all, I dedicate this book to them in a 
Round Robin. 





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From one who will never forget the kindness and the 
help she received from them in her direst need. 



MARY EYRE. 



OVER THE PYRENEES 
INTO SPAIN. 



CHAPTEE I. 

THROUGH FRANCE TO THE EASTERN PYRENEES. 

The route usually taken to the Pyrenees is not 
the most interesting or varied in scenery. As I 
hope this book may serve as a guide to future 
travellers, I must therefore be permitted to say 
a few words about my journey through France. 

Dieppe vid Newhaven, across a sea of azure 
blue varied by shades of white and lapis lazuli ; 
not a soul ill on board, and the day so calm that 
the English and French coasts were both visible 
at once, which the sailors told us is not often 
the case. I slept at Dieppe, and went to Eouen 
the next morning ; but ah ! I went too late. 

B 



2 



OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



The picturesque, quaint, old houses, of which 
I had heard all my life, and whose outlines and 
aspect are fortunately preserved by Prout and 
other artists, have disappeared to make room 
for wide, handsome streets, and lofty Parisian 
mansions. When I looked at some of these 
half-demolished old dwellings, and saw the 
filthy, squalid, small rooms of which they con- 
sisted — rooms which none but the lowest of the 
low could have inhabited — I felt the Emperor 
was right in commanding their destruction. 
They had the picturesque beauty of a tumble- 
down pigsty e ; and the artist must regret them ; 
but the maii of the day, he whose mission is to 
reform and to elevate his people, could not 
allow them to stand. Eouen will no longer 
present to us the aspect of a town of the middle 
ages, but Eouen will become a grand and beau- 
tiful city of France. I shall say nothing of St. 
Ouen and the Cathedral, (the first is well known 
as one of the finest specimens of Gothic archi- 
tecture,) nor of the beautiful gateway of La 
Grosse Horloge, which from its bearing the em- 
blem of the Templars, must, I should think, 
have been erected by them, except that the 
carvings of sheep and other animals, on its 



THROUGH FRANCE TO THE EASTERN PYRENEES. 3 

interior, are wonderfully spirited and life-like ; 
and that the permitting the lower part of the 
walls to be covered with quack advertisements 
of all kinds, from chocolate to those detestable 
crinolines, is a disgrace to Eouen. So beautiful 
a monument of antiquity ought to be held 
sacred from bill-posters. As to all architectural 
curiosities worthy a stranger's attention, are they 
not written in Murray ? Above the Seine rises 
a steep rock, whose inland side looked green 
and verdant. Tired of architecture, I longed 
for grass and trees, and walked thither along 
the quays. It was a hot day, and Keeper, my 
dog, who did not care for views, seemed to 
think walking on such a hot day cruel in the 
extreme ; he ran under gateways, and lay down 
there, panting ; finally, seeing I went sternly on, 
he dashed into an omnibus on one of the quays, 
thereby plainly intimating his opinion that in 
such hot weather it was better for dogs to ride 
than walk ; but I called him out, and ruthlessly 
climbed La Cote. Take care where you set your 
feet in fields near French towns or villages — lift 
your petticoats high — stop your nose if you can. 
This beautiful shady lane was horrible. At last 
I emerged on the open hill-side, and reached the 

B 2 



4 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

summit, where once stood a strong fort, ■ dis- 
mantled,' says infallible Murray, by Henri IV 
at the request of the citizens, with the memor- 
able words, that he 4 desired no fortress but the 
hearts of his subjects.' Here I sat and gazed 
on the picturesque old town on the slope oppo- 
site — its towers, its pinnacles, and its thousands 
of houses ; its bright-looking villas, standing in 
trim gardens, a little beyond the city ; and then, 
turning ; on the winding Seine, and the fair and 
fertile valley through which it flows, and thought 
myself well repaid for the toil of ascending a 
hill 380 feet high. 

I left Eouen for Paris the next day, passing 
through a rich and interesting country. The 
Seine seems to flow through a sort of natural 
basin, surrounded on every side by gently swell- 
ing, rounded hills, clothed with grass and corn- 
fields, interspersed with white villas, and farm- 
houses, and quaint little villages with spire or 
tower rising above their roofs, meadows full of 
flowers, and young plantations ; but I saw none 
of the fine old trees one sees in England, and I 
heard no birds. * After a few days' rest at 

* The French, farmers have destroyed all the birds, and are 
now finding out they are a sort of natural police, established 



THROUGH FRANCE TO THE EASTERN PYRENEES. 5 



a comfortable French pension, I quitted the 
'beautiful city,' daily becoming more and more 
enriched with wide, handsome streets, new 
boulevards, churches, and bridges, under the 
Emperor's care; for Clermont Ferrand in Au- 
vergne. 

I was told I could get thence directly across 
France to Montauban, and thence on to Foix, 
and thought it would be at once the most beau- 
tiful and cheapest route to the Pyrenees. Beau- 
tiful it was, indeed; but, alas! I was misinformed 
by my French acquaintance, and I reached it 
late in the evening, and was persuaded by a 
young French woman I travelled with, to seek 
an economical French auberge with her. The 
less I say of that auberge the better for it. 
Sleep never visited my eyelids, and I got up and 
dressed as soon as daylight dawned, and set off, 
faint and weary — unable to eat for want of 
sleep — to explore the town. Clermont is beau- 
tifully situated in a basin, surrounded by steep 
and picturesque mountains and hills. Grandest 

t>y God to keep down their far worse enemies, insects. The trees 
around Paris, especially in the Bois de Boulogne, have as 
many caterpillars almost on them as leaves ; they fall on one at 
every step as one walks beneath them. 



C OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

and highest of all rises the Puy de Dome ; but 
it is a dirty, ugly, detestable town. I was so 
weary, I walked into the shop of a M. L'Anglois, 
and asked leave to sit down and rest. How 
urbane and courteous the French are ! The 
master instantly rose and gave me a chair ; fur- 
ther, on my asking him about trains — for I could 
not endure the thought of another night with 
what Dora Wordsworth denominates crawlers 
and jumpers, (I quote her, for fear of reviewers, 
who think — or at least say — I ought not to de- 
scribe things as they are, but as they ought to be, 
while I think the only way to amend a grievance 
is to make it public) — he laid down his pen, 
examined my £ Indicateur des Chemins de Fer,' 
and told me by what train I could leave Cler- 
mont. He also asked me to leave my shawl 
and bag there while I went through the town, 
which I was glad to do. The town was not 
worth seeing ; every street and house looked 
dirty ; and the remarkable petrifying spring, and 
baths, mentioned by Murray, so far distant, I 
did not feel equal to visiting them. I soon re- 
turned, and M. L'Anglois politely handed me, 
my bags, and my dog, into the omnibus going 
to the railway station. Query : How many 



THROUGH FRANCE TO THE EASTERN PYRENEES. 7 



English shopkeepers would have been as civil to 
a passing stranger, who bought nothing ? 

At the station I had a cup of bad coffee, but 
when I was once in the carriage, sitting at ease, 
with my feet on the opposite seat, fanned by the 
soft, pure, balmy air, and feasting my eyes on 
the beautiful scenery that, as it were, unrolled 
itself before me as I whirled through it, I soon 
revived. I could not even regret — though I do 
4 economise francs and half-francs,' and in this 
age of shams and pretence have the moral 
courage to own it in the most shameless man- 
ner, nay, rather to pride myself on doing so — 
that I had gone to all this needless expense, and 
was now retracing my road to Lyons. So beau- 
tiful were the mountain ranges, so rich and 
verdant the sunny slopes, so lovely the wild 
flowers. Ah ! it is well worth going to Cler- 
mont, and thence to Lyons, for the whole route 
is one scene of ever-varying, never-ending 
beauty. 

At Lyons I went to the Hotel de l'Europe — 
because it pleased the omnibus driver to conduct 
me thither ; and as it was nearly ten o'clock I 
could not go through the large city hotel-hunt- 
ing. It is a palace ; the salle a manger, where I 



8 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

breakfasted alone the next morning, is carved, 
and painted, and gilt, and panelled, like a noble- 
man's dining-room, and everything is good and 
clean, but it is very dear. However, I only 
needed tea, a good night's rest, and breakfast of 
coffee ; but that cost seven francs and a half ; 
and one may have breakfast, dejeuner a la four- 
chette, dinner, tea, and the use of a salon for 
that sum in Switzerland, and in many and most 
good French inns, if one did but know them, 
and if one was not une Anglais e, supposed to 
be a walking money-bag, and charged accord- 
ingly. Who cares to pay for carving and gilding 
in an inn ? One only needs a clean bedroom 
and good wholesome food. If I could, I should 
not care to spend a guinea a day at any Hotel 
de l'Europe ; I would rather help others who 
need help. It seems to me a sin to spend all 
one has upon self. 

Well rested by sweet sleep, I rose early, and 
walked along the quays and over the bridges. 
Lyons is a very handsome city, but not a pecu- 
liarly interesting one. It is built on gently 
undulating slopes, with the river Ehone winding 
between them, and its tiers of large white 
houses interspersed here and there with green 



THROUGH FRANCE TO THE EASTERN PYRENEES. 9 

foliage, its river and its bridges looked all 
bright and glittering in the pleasant morning 
sunlight. I left it at ten o'clock for Avignon. 
Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in Ascalon ! 
I left it in a third-class carriage — partly out of 
economy, to save up the unnecessary expense of 
going to Clermont, partly because Dr. Webster, 
an old and experienced traveller, had advised 
me always to travel third class, because I should 
see thereby more of the character of the people. 
' The higher classes/ said he, ' are the same in 
all countries ; but I always travel third class, 
that I may study the habits and manners of the 
people/ The carriage was reserve aux dames, 
and I had no reason to regret having entered it ; 
it was quite as good as the second-class car- 
riages on most English lines — a mere wooden 
box, uncushioned, but far cleaner than ours. 
My companions were all of the working class, 
but how superior to our English women of the 
same rank, in neatness, in manners, and in grace. 
One was the wife of an omnibus conductor. 
One worked in a house where silk- worms were 
reared, and gave me some interesting details 
regarding them. Three were sisters of charity. 
None went the whole journey with me — most 



10 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

only a few stations ; but I saw a great deal of 
French life, and heard a great deal that amused 
me, of French ideas and ways. How beautiful 
the whole journey was ; the railroad often run- 
ning along the banks of the Bhone, seldom losing 
sight of it. Among corn-fields, meadows, and 
vineyards, and through willow copses, the river 
wound in beautiful long lake-like reaches, with 
long ranges of blue hills, higher than those of 
the Seine, but not mountains. By-and-by, the 
distant mountains of Savoy rose to the right, as 
I sat backwards in the train. Their outlines 
were abrupt, varied, and grand ; the outlines of 
one were rounded and scalloped like the edge 
of a cloud, and had it been evening instead of 
noonday I should have taken them for clouds ; 
so blue and hazy, with long patches of white 
snow lying on their summits, and partly cover- 
ing their sides, they gleamed in the distance. 
I did not well know on which side of the car- 
riage to sit, and English people would have 
complained of the way I darted from one end 
of the carriage to the other, to get a sight of 
the loveliest views. I wished I could cut my- 
self in two, or at least sit on the top of the car- 
riage, to see both sides of the road at once ; 



THROUGH FRANCE TO THE EASTERN PYRENEES. 11 

but my French companions were only pleased 
that I should admire their country. As we 
whirled along, I saw many of the mulberry- 
trees stripped of their leaves for the silk- worms ; 
after which it seems the practice to lop their 
branches, so that they look somewhat like huge 
currant-bushes in winter — a blur and a blot 
upon the green landscape. I could not Ifelp 
likening them in my own mind to myself, and 
others who have been unfortunate in life — left 
naked, bare, and desolate, while all their com- 
panions were nourishing green around them. 
It seemed to me that the other trees felt ashamed 
of them, as the rich are ashamed of poor rela- 
tions ; they seem, both of them, trees without 
leaves and people without means, to have no 
business to exist ; they are both simply a blot 
upon beauty and prosperity. I thought how 
Hans Andersen would have made a child's 
story out of them, and as he was not there to 
do it, made one for myself. Here it is — for we 
still teach our children the beauty and heroism 
of self-sacrifice, endurance, and exertion, in 
theory, while our practice — our English mam- 
mon-worship — is a disgrace to us as a people, 
and will as certainly, if persisted in, draw down 



12 



OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



upon us the purifying fire from heaven, of re- 
volution, as American self-love and mammon- 
worship — selling the souls of men for gold — 
drew it down upon the slave states. 

Once upon a time there was a fair and fertile 
land, surrounded on all sides by blue mountains. 
A wide river ran through its vineyards, and 
woods, and meadows, and glittered brightly in 
the noonday sun ; and trees grew upon the 
green slopes, and in the hollows between the 
hills, and some edged the fields. Tall poplars 
grew in the hedge sides ; silvery stemmed birches 
waved their light foliage on the mountain slopes ; 
grey willows grew thickly among the sandy 
reaches of the river, and among the reeds that 
clothed its banks ; here and there a few firs 
shook their dark green needle-like leaves, and 
the wind as" it rushed through them sounded like 
the dreary moaning of the sea; and by the 
houses, and in the fields, grew the bright green 
mulberries; and beneath the shadow of all 
these, protected from fierce blasts and scorching 
sunshine, grew corn, and grapes, and rich grass, 
full of a thousand bright-coloured flowers. It 
was a land beautiful as Paradise, and each 
tree, and plant, and flower, seemed to feel and 



THROUGH FRANCE TO THE EASTERN PYRENEES. 13 



rejoice in its beauty, and that of its neigh- 
bours. 

But by-and-by came men with ladders, and 
they stripped the poor mulberry-trees of all 
their leaves, leaving them naked and bare, a 
disgrace to the scene. The poor mulberry- 
trees groaned and shivered with shame and 
cold in the cold nights, and withered and felt 
scorched in the glaring sun at noon, but that 
was not enough. Misfortune never comes 
single. By-and-by the same men came with 
hatchets, and lopped off all their branches, 
leaving them like an apple-tree prepared for 
grafting, uglier and more miserable than before, 
and bleeding at every pore. Then the other 
trees, proud of their beautiful foliage, re- 
proached them with scorn. 4 Die,' said the 
proud ones, 6 and be no longer a disgrace and • 
a shame to our beautiful land ; the ivy indeed 
might have the charity to cover your naked- 
ness if those men would let her, for she is a 
charitable plant, and always clings to ruins, but 
it is of no use her attempting it, for they would 
stub her up too. You are fit for nothing but 
firewood ; die, therefore, at once, and rid our 
eyes of so hideous a sight.' The poor mul- 



14 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



berries creaked dismally in the wind from the 
river, and looked as if they wished they conld 
die, and trouble the pleasure of others no more, 
as the unfortunate often do wish in vain ; but 
the light branches of the vine waved gracefully, 
and I thought I heard a soft sweet voice come 
from among them, and it said, ' Ignorant trees, 
the law of existence is self-sacrifice ; everything 
on earth suffers, that some other thing or being 
may be benefited. You, oh, oaks ! when big 
enough, will be cut down to form ships, in 
which men may traverse the ocean. Your 
sides, oh, pines ! will be pierced that your sap 
may now out, and afterwards you will be cut 
down and burnt for firewood. So it will be 
with the other trees ; and the willows are 
lopped every few years that baskets may be 
• made of their branches. As to me, in a few 
months I shall be rudely despoiled of my fruit, 
and my boughs torn and broken by the vintage 
gatherers ; but I mourn not, for my fruit will 
be made into rich wine to strengthen the heart 
of man. As to the mulberries, their leaves 
indeed have all been stripped off them, but those 
leaves fed silk-worms, and are turned into the 
silk which clothes graceful and beautiful ladies, 



THROUGH FRANCE TO THE EASTERN PYRENEES. 15 

empresses, and queens. I have even heard, that, 
at least in China, it is afterwards made into 
paper, and goes to form books which enlighten 
and improve the whole world. One should not 
think only of self.' No doubt the vine was 
right, but I thought I heard the mulberry sigh, 
' All this does not prevent my feeling shabby, 
and ugly, and miserable, when every other tree 
around me is green and beautiful in the 
summer air. I am glad I am of use to man, 
but I wish I was dead for all that. I cannot 
endure to be so different to all around me; and, 
oh, vine ! though I know what you say is true, 
I cannot reconcile myself to my misery and 
degradation. I would willingly endure my fate 
for those I loved, but what are men whom I do 
not know to me ? I wish I was dead.' And the 
other trees waved their boughs and said they 
wished so too. But the vine replied, 4 Ye are 
all foolish. The insect perishes that the bird 
may live ; the mother suffers that her child may 
be born ; from the crushed grape comes strong 
wine. Murmur no more, for is not self-sacrifice 
the law of existence ? ' 

As we drew nearer to Avignon, one of my 
companions pointed out to me that most of the 



16 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

mulberry-trees still retained their leaves. 
4 That will tell you,' said she, 4 how bad a year 
it has been for the worms. They have had the 
same disease as the vine — Us sont tout creves. In 
our house we lost 2,000 francs by them this 
year — figurez-vous, 2,000 francs ! ' She spoke 
as if it were millions, and, as all things are 
comparative, it probably was millions to her. 
She told me there are three kinds of worms — 
the common, the Montenegro, and the Japanese 
worm. Only the Japanese, which is the hardiest, 
succeeded this year. I had read that the Japan 
silk- worm required no attention, and was left to 
feed on the trees ; but she said it needed the 
same care as the others, at least, dans son 
pays, for the heavy rains killed it if left out of 
doors. 

What is the reason of the potato disease, 
and the vine blight, and the silk-worm disease ? 
Are all things wearing out? Is the world 
growing old and near its end? God grant it 
may, and a better, and a happier, and fairer 
world arise from its ashes ! 

At one of the small stations, a man attempted 
to enter our carriage. We all opened our 
mouths. 6 Monsieur, ce wagon est reserve aux 



THROUGH FRANCE TO THE EASTERN PYRENEES. 17 

dames ! ■ 6 Pardonnez-moi, niesdames ! ' cried he, 
continuing to mount, 'rnais c'est que je suis si 
presse ! ' As the train was standing perfectly 
still, we did not see the drift of his argument, 
but finding the creature resolute, made room 
for him. Before long, came the conductor — 
c Monsieur, cette voiture est reservee aux dames.' 
c Monsieur, je le sais, mais c'est que je suis si 
presse.' 6 Mais, monsieur, vous ne pouvez pas y 
rester ; il faut que vous descendiez,' and un- 
willingly the man obeyed. If there had been 
a young and pretty girl of the party I should 
not have wondered. As to his being c presse,' 
the train did not go on for some minutes 
after he left our carriage. One of my com- 
panions observed it was well there was a 
carriage for women. She had lately travelled 
in a mixed conveyance, and half a dozen 
drunken sailors got in, and made the journey 
very unpleasant. It is only in a country like 
France that a carriage would be reserved for 
women travelling alone by third class ; and yet 
the young poor girl requires more protection 
than the rich one, for she is not so fenced in by 
the respect always paid to apparent wealth, 
and consequent respectability. 



18 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



I readied Avignon by six o'clock, and am 
disappointed in it. The view of the Eh one, 
the papal castle towering above, the distant 
blue mountains behind, and the woody heights 
of Avignon Villeneuve opposite, are very beauti- 
ful ; but the streets are narrow and dirty, and the 
whole town has a squalid appearance. It needs 
a visit from the Emperor, who would certainly 
order demolitions to begin at once. The new 
Palais de Justice is, however, a fine building ; 
so is the theatre close by. 

I do not admire the Chateau des Papes, except 
as seen from the bridge. I stayed four days at 
Avignon, at the Hotel du Luxembourg. It was 
tolerably clean for a French provincial hotel, 
the cooking good, the vin ordinaire excellent, 
and the attendance civil. The master of the 
house died suddenly the day before I arrived, 
and was buried the morning after I came. 
4 A onze heures il a dejeune comme un boeuf, et 
a quatre heures il etait mort,' said the garqon 
to me. 4 D'apoplexie ? ' 6 Oh non, il a bien 
souffert. Cetait un grand et bel homme, un 
colosse; je ne puis pas me persuader qu'il est 
mort. Ah ! la mort, c'est une chose affreuse ; je 
n'aime pas d'y songer.' 6 La mort,' answered I, 



THROUGH FRANCE TO THE EASTERN PYRENEES. 19 

and God knows I spoke from the heart, 6 c'est 
tout ce que nous avons de plus belle — la vie est 
un malheur ; heureux ceux qui meurent jeunes.' 
c Moi je n'ainie pas l'idee de niourir ; je veux 
vivre,' replied the garcon. Life had charms for 
him. There was but one bonne, a kind of house- 
hold scrub under the valets of the hotel, and 
very difficult to catch. So it is throughout the 
provinces in France : the garcon does every- 
thing; — sweeps your room — makes your bed — 
answers your bell. I told them I was c bien 
Anglaise' in all my ideas, and insisted on having 
the bonne, not to do my room, that was useless, 
and besides it was done when I was out walk- 
ing, but when I needed attendance. I asked 
her, and a dame who seemed to preside during 
the retirement of the widow, of what M. 
Boussot had died. No one would enlighten me. 
I suspected afterwards it was cholera, because 
I became unwell myself, and fancied I had 
caught the complaint there. 

I saw one day some cocoons in a window, and 
wishing to see the new Japanese silk-worm, I 
entered the shop and asked to be permitted to 
look at them. With the ready courtesy which 
distinguishes the French, the master of the 

c 2 



20 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



shop instantly came forward to show me the 
cocoons, and to give me every information in 
his power. There were no worms at that 
season ; they had all passed into the pupa state, 
or become moths. He showed me two which 
had just emerged from the cocoon ; ugly, 
grey, short, thick-bodied moths, with two small 
whitish wings, which they flapped as if to help 
them in the difficult process of crawling over 
the paper on which they were, and quite 
unable to fly; they seemed to me the very 
dodos of the entomological world. Certainly 
they must have been created for the express 
purpose of benefiting man, for I can scarcely 
think they can have any animal enjoyment of 
their short existence, which lasts but a few 
hours. Then my new friend gave me some 
interesting details about the man whose energy 
and perseverance had given so rich a gift to 
his native country. M. Berlandier was born at 
Barbantane in the Arrondissement des Bouch.es 
du Ehone, near Avignon, in 1826. Having 
lost his property by an inundation, and seeing 
the country around him ruined by the con- 
tinued and successive failure of the silk-crop, 
owing to the worms being attacked by a 



THROUGH FRANCE TO THE EASTERN PYRENEES. 21 



disease analogous to that which in the same 
year destroyed the vine, he conceived the idea 
of going to Japan to obtain eggs of a new 
species of silk-worm. It was a difficult task, 
for besides having no funds wherewith to 
undertake so long a voyage, there is a law 
which forbids the Japanese to give away silk- 
worms' eggs to any stranger under pain of 
death. What will not perseverance effect? 
M. Berlandier obtained credit and funds. He 
started, accompanied by a young man named 
Leon Convers, originally a baker, for Hong 
Kong, in 1860. Having maintained themselves 
there for some time by honest industry, the two 
companions started for Tien-tsing, where poor 
Leon Convers died in consequence of the hard- 
ships they had undergone. Berlandier, whose 
frame was more robust, succeeded in reaching 
Yokahama in Japan, in 1863, and in bribing 
a Japanese to procure him silk-worm eggs. 
Fearing the heat of the sun might hatch them 
on his homeward journey, he travelled through 
Eussia and Siberia to France, and the result 
was that almost all the eggs were frozen when 
he arrived in 1864. Noways discouraged, he 
again obtained credit and pecuniary aid, and 



22 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



started on a second voyage to Japan, after 
having obtained instructions from one of the 
best French naturalists how to preserve the 
precious eggs. This time he was entirely suc- 
cessful, and in March 1865 he returned with a 
considerable quantity of eggs of the much 
prized Japanese silk-worm, and succeeded in 
giving to his country a new and valuable article 
of commerce. But happiness is not the destiny 
of man. M. Berlandier was married, and the 
father of two little girls. His poor wife just 
lived to see him return, and to learn his success, 
dying a fortnight afterwards. He is thus left 
alone in the world with two young orphans to 
maintain, and heavily burdened by the debts 
he has incurred in those distant and costly 
voyages. France has given him a gold medal 
and other honours, but she ought to do more 
for him who has given her so rich a gift. She 
ought to settle on the adventurous traveller a 
sum which would provide sufficiently for his 
children, and guarantee to himself a life of ease 
and tranquillity after so much hardship. This 
Japanese worm must not be confounded with 
the ailanthus, which also comes from Japan. 
The insect brought by Berlandier feeds on 



THROUGH FRANCE TO THE EASTERN PYRENEES. 23 

mulberry-leaves, and requires the same care as 
the old French silk worm, but produces at once 
the finest and the strongest silk. The silk-worm 
which feeds on the ailanthus is said to require 
no care beyond placing on the tree, where it 
takes care of itself until it becomes a cocoon, 
and the silk produced is of a strong but coarse 
kind, and is used in Japan chiefly for the 
garments of the poorer class, and for articles 
requiring strength of texture. It is said to be 
almost impossible to wear out silk made from 
the ailanthus, but it does not seem much in 
favour at Avignon. My kind informant con- 
cluded by offering me some of the eggs. Had I 
been returning to England I should gladly have 
accepted them ; as it was, what could I do with 
silk- worm eggs ? He was M. Berlandier's agent 
at Avignon. 

Avignon to Nismes. — The country was not 
particularly interesting, and the grey willow- 
like olive harmonised with the white dusty 
road we traversed. I travelled third class in a 
wagon aux dames settles, partly for economy. 
I scorn all shams as much as Carlyle himself, 
and being poor — not by my fault, but through 
cruel injustice — rather glory in proclaiming it, 



24 0YEE THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



and in the knowledge that — thank God, in all 
that poverty — I have never wronged any one, or 
made a debt, whatever I may have needed, or 
gone without. Moreover, poverty is a stern 
but valuable touchstone. It is like that Venice 
glass which shivered into pieces the moment 
poison was poured into it. Speak but that one 
sentence, 'I am poor,' and false friends, who 
have overwhelmed you with attention, shrink 
from you as if you had the plague. What does 
it matter? The noble heart remains true, 
and is doubly valued, because it has stood that 
crucial test. 

Basta I Let me return to my travelling com- 
panions. Two who got into the carriage a few 
miles from Avignon were pretty girls — cousins. 
They were accompanied to the station by a tall 
man in a large straw hat, who made innumer- 
able lover-like speeches to one of them, wishing 
he could but accompany her to Nismes, &c. 
She held a young baby folded in her shawl, on 
whom from time to time she looked down 
with all a mother's proud love. Of course I 
admired le poupon. 6 Was it her first ? ' 4 Oh, 
no ! She had one four years old.' 1 And mon- 
sieur was her husband ? ' 6 Yes.' Then her heart 



THROUGH FRANCE TO THE EASTERN PYRENEES. 25 

opening to the sensible woman who admired 
her baby, she began to tell me her history. She 
and her husband had a rich uncle at Panama, 
and they thought of emigrating there very soon. 
She did not care ; what was it to her ; she should 
have him and her bebee. As to the eldest, they 
should leave it behind with her mother. 6 Ah ! 
do not, ' said I. 4 If you leave her, she will never 
be your child again, nor you her mother. Your 
affection will all be given to the child with 
you, or those who may be born ; they will be 
differently educated from the one left here; 
and when, after six or seven years, you return 
to France, you will find her unlike your other 
children and not love her. I also was separated 
in infancy from my family. I never was one 
of them, or loved or treated like the others 
in consequence. God has sent me to save this 
child from suffering as I suffered. Take her 
with you to Panama. If God had given me 
children, knowing what I know of the effects of 
early and prolonged separation between parents 
and children, I would have begged with my 
children — starved with them, rather than parted 
from them.' 

Another of my companions was a poor old 



26 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



peasant. 4 Que la vie est triste, surtout pour 
les femmes ! ' said she ; 6 Madame est mariee ? ' 
'Non.' 6 All ! Madame est bien heureuse; 
les hommes sont mechants, au moins le plupart. 
Yous auriez eu un buvard, un faineant qui vous 
aurait insultee, battue, maltraitee, Ah ! que vous 
etes heureuse d'etre seule ! ' In fact the life of a 
peasant woman is hard in all countries ; especi- 
ally hard in France, where all the heaviest and 
dirtiest field-work falls on women, while men 
clean corridors and make beds ! We reached 
Msmes about two o'clock, and as in duty bound, 
I went to see the Maison Carree and the amphi- 
theatre. I had not classical taste enough to 
admire the first ; the second is very grand. I 
went thence along the canal, which is divided 
into large reservoirs. In one of these the un- 
fortunate washerwomen were standing up to 
their knees in water, beating, rinsing, soaping 
linen. A hard life must theirs be, especially 
in winter ; and how easily might the authorities 
of the town remedy it, by letting the water 
run into a fountain, around which the women 
might stand to wash their clothes. The more I 
see of French life the more I value England, 
with all her comforts and conveniences even 



THROUGH FRANCE TO THE EASTERN PYRENEES. 27 

for the poor; her coal-fires, her coppers, her 
public baths and wash-houses. If we fail iu 
many things — if we value rank and riches 
too much, at least we try to ameliorate the 
condition of the poor work-woman and work- 
man. 

I followed the canal to the public gardens, 
which I suppose may give one a fair idea of what 
an ancient Eoman garden was. Those massive 
stone steps and terraces — those basins of water, 
date from their days. Here, ruined temples and 
statues of Pan and Hercules seem in their place. 
The very air of partial decay and ruin adds to 
the beauty and interest of the scene. I sat 
down on a stone bench, 'and the breeze brought 
a well-known scent to me;' it was not 'Mr. 
Eochester's cigar,' but my favourite scent the 
lime-tree blossom. I meant to have spent this 
summer under the lime-trees of Hampstead ; in- 
stead, I am here — here, where I never thought 
of being. How little one really chooses one's 
path in life, or one's friends, or one's employ- 
ment. I wandered up and down this garden 
for two hours, although feeling very unwell, to 
the great disgust of Keeper, who rushed franti- 
cally under the shade of trees and benches, 



28 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



where lie lay panting, with his tongue out, look- 
ing daggers at me, and showing me by every 
means in his power that he thought it too hot 
to walk. The ah" was deliciously sweet with the 
rich odour of the limes, and the spicy fragrance 
of the pines upon the hill-sides ; it seemed to 
breathe fresh vigour into my jaded frame, and 
I was loth to quit the garden. At last I 
returned home to mine inn, and had a plat 
brought to my room for myself, and another for 
Keeper. I never dine at the table dlidte. It 
is not agreeable to a single woman to dine among 
the commis-voyageurs and other indiscriminate 
company composing a table d'hote, and I do not 
care about my dinner sufficiently to encounter 
all the noise and vulgarity one is exposed to, 
alone. If I were one of a party, it would be 
different. 

I stayed that night at Nismes, growing more 
ill every hour, and started next morning for 
Montpellier. What can people find to like 
in that uninteresting ugly town, its shade- 
less environs, its white-dusted streets? I felt 
more feverish every moment ; to eat was impos- 
sible. I did nothing but drink lemonade. All 



THROUGH FRANCE TO THE EASTERN PYRENEES. 29 



night I was very ill, but lemonade, which in 
Prance is often ordered for cholera, kept rne 
alive ; and rather better in the morning, and 
anxious to get to Spain, I started for a long 
day's journey — from Montpellier to Foix. 



30 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



CHAPTEE II. 



THE EASTERN PYRENEES. 



The route was not pretty at first. As the 
train whirled on, the country grew more inter- 
esting. I noticed many, to me, new and beauti- 
ful plants on the banks of the railway cutting. 
I should think that a botanist would find much 
to reward him at Cette. The fields hereabouts 
were often hedged by tamarisk, whose slender 
graceful branches and pale-pink spike of flowers 
waved with the slightest breeze. It was a 
beautiful day, a blue Italian sky above, and the 
sea below almost as blue. Here I saw large 
dikes or dams on the other side the railway, in 
which the sea-water is left to dry up. In a few 
it had already evaporated, and a slight crust of 
white lay on the sand. Most of the salt used in 
France is thus procured, but it is always of a 
grey colour, has a brackish unpleasant taste, 



THEOUGH FRANCE TO THE EASTERN PYRENEES. 31 

and is very inferior to our rock-salt. We passed 
through Narbonne, but I saw nothing very in- 
teresting till I came to Carcassone ; there the 
country became more hilly, and the old feudal 
castle looked well from its lofty hill, overlooking 
the town below like an eagle's eyrie. Though 
I was travelling third class, I had a pleasant lady- 
like Toulousaine for my companion, and in our 
long, weary, hot day's journey we became great 
friends, and she expressed much regret that I 
was not going to stay at Toulouse, and that she 
could not show me her house and garden. A 
number of peasant women with strange head- 
gear got in at one station ; two were widows, 
and wore under a black hood a sort of stiff 
cross-way border of muslin, to which a cross-way 
double border or hem was pinned on with small 
pins. How do French women, especially with 
French pins, contrive, that they shall never drop 
out or loosen? There are the Sisters of Charity 
of various orders, with those strange indescrib- 
able caps of stiffened linen, the caps of each 
apparently more inconvenient and flapping 
than the other ; they are held in their place by 
three single pins. One plaits the cap up behind ; 
one attaches it to the white head-band on each 



32 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

side the temple. How is it that those pins 
never come out ? Altogether the French 
woman is a mystery to me. I cannot compre- 
hend her. Unquestionably we English are fifty 
times cleaner, in our houses, and in our persons, 
but we do not look so. Are they sprung from 
the ermines, which are said to die of grief if 
their fur is stained, and do they inherit from 
that remote ancestry a power of passing unde- 
filed through all dirt? This morning — no later 
— I saw a French lady trailing a fawn-coloured 
gown over the floor of a dirty-looking lodging 
opposite, which I dare swear never knew scrub- 
bing-brush, or even clout, and water. She has 
worn that gown ever since I have been here, 
and she has two children always clinging about 
her, and it has not a rumple or a stain upon it. 
I only got caught in the rain yesterday, and my 
gown is tattered and rumpled as if it was rough 
dry ; but then I am an unhappy Englishwoman ; 
my clothes will get dirty and tumbled, do what 
I will. 

Oh, how sultry and disagreeable that day's 
journey was ! From the time I reached Avignon 
the soil has been a kind of white limestone, 
which grinds into a fine white dust, that works 



THE EASTERN PYRENEES. 



33 



into everything, scorches one's throat, and blinds 
one's eyes ; I felt literally choked with dust. 
The Toulousaine talked patois with the peasant 
women, and I was glad to hold my tongue ; I 
felt too exhausted for speech. After awhile 
they all got out at some little village, and the 
Toulousaine recounted to me what they had 
told her. It was a modern miracle. The 
daughter of one had been ill of some unknown 
disease (probably hysterical) for years ; she 
could not swallow, and spent most of her time 
in bed. The mother heard of some celebrated 
shrine of Our Lady — I do not retain the name 
— and she had a neuvaine, nine days' masses, 
said for her daughter. After this a Monsieur 
went to this shrine, and when he returned, he 
brought back a handkerchief that had touched 
the image. As soon as this was laid on the 
young girl's breast, she felt something go down- 
wards towards her feet. She grew better daily. 
In twenty-five days she was quite cured, and 
went to thank God for her marvellous restora- 
tion to health. Of course I felt it was a case of 
mesmerism. The Monsieur was a powerful 
magnetiser ; he had magnetised the handkerchief, 
and the girl's simple faith and excited imagina- 



34 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



tion had done the rest. But I did not say so. 
Why should I try to take from any one the 
deep happiness there is in belief ? At Toulouse 
my pleasant companion left me, and I went on 
towards Foix. She was soon replaced by pea- 
sants, who, however, were all very civil ; and the 
train being very full, some men entered the 
sacred wagon devoted to the dames seules. 
One was a colporteur, with his pack of Bibles, 
and other Protestant works. He knew the 
Protestant pastor, M. Frossard, of Bagneres, and 
had lately had a letter from him. I asked him if 
he had a Spanish Testament, and he opened his 
pack to look, but, alas ! had only French ones. 
Instead, with many regrets he offered me as a 
cadeau, c La Vigne Sterile' — a sermon by Mr. 
Spurgeon. Think of having a sermon of Mr. 
Spurgeon's given to one in L'Ariege! Not to 
wound his susceptibilities, I too*k it and thanked 
him. I read it afterwards in my bed at Foix, and 
am bound to say it was a good one. I left it on 
the mantelpiece of my bedroom there, hoping it 
might fall into the hands of some one who 
might also be benefited thereby — a grain of 
corn cast by the way-side. As we whirled 
along, the country became every moment more 



THE EASTERN PTREIS^ES. 35 

beautiful ; the rich fertile lands were cultivated 
like a garden. I passed through fields of maize 
and corn, and green English-looking meadows 
of rich deep grass and common English hay-flelcl 
flowers, shaded by the inevitable poplar, willows 
and alders. Slender streams crept here and 
there down the hills, or through the grass. 
Vineyards clothed every sunny slope, and the 
noisy Ariege murmured hoarsely in its rocky 
bed, while blue rounded hills, ever varying in 
form and outline, rose one above the other at 
every bend of the line. But the night-breeze 
from the mountains blew keen and cold after 
the terrific heat of the day. I had been broil- 
ing and stewing for nearly twelve hours, and 
now my teeth chattered in my head. At 
Saverdun all my companions left me ; and, 
tempting as it was to look at the grey church 
tower and stone-built little town on that green 
hill-side, all flooded by the golden light of the 
setting sun, I was glad to draw up both win- 
dows and exclude the cold air. We passed 
Panders, seated, like Saverdun, on a green hill- 
side, amid vineyards, walnut-trees, and fruit- 
trees of all kinds. I fancied I should like to 
stay there : but time presses ; I must hurry on. 
i> 2 



36 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

It was dark when we reached Foix, but a clear 
bright night. My first impressions of the Arie- 
gois were not favourable. I asked the omnibus 
drivers to take me to a clean but moderate-priced 
hotel. I was driven to one so wretched looking, 
I was thankful when Madame clapped me on 
my shoulder, and said, 'Bien fachee, ma chere, 
mais nous n'avons pas de chambre.' The men 
said roughly, ' Get into the omnibus ; we will take 
you to another.' ' 1 would rather find one for 
myself,' said I, 'for I see you have no idea what 
I want.' But they gruffly replied, ' Montez done!' 
So, to evade a quarrel in the street, I got in with 
Keeper — firmly resolved I would sleep in no inn 
whose appearance displeased me. As I expected, 
they drove me to a wretched little aubei-ge, 
which I refused to enter. The men swore and 
grumbled. 4 What could I — what did I want ?' 
' I pay you,' said I, 6 for the omnibus, libre h 
moi de choisir mon hotel.' I had left my car- 
pet-bag at the railway station. I had nothing 
but a small travelling-bag and my shawls and 
Keeper to encumber me, so I set forth on foot 
at half-past nine at night to explore this un- 
known town. Seeing a tolerable-looking drug- 
gist's shop, I entered, and asked the master if he 



FOIX. 



could tell me of a clean, moderate-priced hotel ; 
he named one, ' a cote,' and I went thither. 
The sight of the outside was enough. I resolved 
to trust only to myself, and I retraced the way 
I had come in the omnibus, till I reached the 
Hotel Eousse, opposite the Eocher de Foix. 
There I was shown into a good and clean-looking 
room. I ordered cafe au lait, and while it was 
preparing, I seated myself, despite the cold, 
at the open window. I do not think a more 
beautiful scene ever presented itself to an artist's 
eye. Below ran the Ariege, crossed by the 
small narrow bridge, the white foam of its tur- 
bulent waters gleaming brightly in the star- 
light, and the innumerable lights that shone cn 
the picturesque groups of houses clustered on 
the hill-side beyond. Above rose a barren, 
isolated, escarped rock, with two heavy square 
towers and one tall round one, connected by a 
mass of masonry, whose outlines were dimly 
discernible, and whose windows also were all 
lighted up. All this, framed in by grey-blue hills 
on which lay dark masses of cloud-like shadows, 
broken here and there by trees and gardens, 
and above all, the deep azure blue sky flecked 
with its thousands of stars, made up such a 



38 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



picture as one does not often look on. Talk of 
Avignon ! Go and see Foix in L'Ariege. Ee- 
luctantly I told the bonne to close the casement ; 
reluctantly I went to bed. I could not sleep. 
I was annoyed by insects of two kinds, and a 
violent attack of neuralgia and bronchitis com- 
bined, kept me in bed all next day. I could not 
swallow anything but liquid, and, alas ! I had no 
magnetiser to give me a handkerchief to lay on 
my cheek and cure the tic. The next day I 
got up and walked about; the acute pain was 
somewhat lessened, but I could not open my 
mouth. I could not eat sopped bread, nor even 
some cherries I bought in the market. This and 
some remarks I made to the bonne — for the Hotel 
Eousse, large as it is, wants the common decencies 
of civilised life — offended its pert and prettyish 
mistress. She avenged herself in her own time 
and way. Throughout the middle of France 
the charge for a good bedroom is one franc and 
a half per diem. You pay for your food accord- 
ing to what you have. Now Madame Eousse 
conceived that, not eating, I failed in my duty 
as a guest, and inwardly resolved I should be 
no gainer. Here, therefore, is my four days' 
bill ; I keep it as a curiosity. 



FOIX. 



39 



Hotel Rousse. 





F. 


c. 


Un bain de pieds (N.B. cold water to wash in) 


0 


50 


Un cafe au lait .... 


1 


0 


Appartement .... 


1 


50 


Bougies ..... 


u 


OU 


Juin 10. 






Un cafe au lait .... 


1 


0 


Bougies ..... 


0 


50 


Service • . • . • 




50 


Juin 11. 






Un cafe au lait .... 


1 


0 


Appartement . . . 


1 


50 


Un verre de groseille .... 


0 


on 
oO 


JJOUglti ..... 






ocrvico ..... 


0 


50 


Jum LZ. 






un caie au lciic .... 


1 

X 




Appartement ..... 


1 


50 


Bougie ..... 


0 


50 


Service ..... 


0 


50 


Juin 13. 






Un cafe au lait .... 


1 


0 


Pour degradation du tapis de dessous le lit 


4 


50 




19 


50 



The degradation of my tapis consisted in my 
dog's having lain upon it and left thereon a few 
hairs ; it was not even soiled. However, I was 
in haste to catch the diligence for Tarascon, and 
I paid it without examination, thinking simply 
it was very dear. My motive for going to 
Tarascon, was to ask St. Andre, the viguier 



40 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



d' Andorre, who resides there, for a recommen- 
dation to some of the chief inhabitants of that 
town, as there is no decent hotel there, accord- 
ing to Murray's guide-book, and the Honourable 
Erskine Murray, the only Englishman who ever 
penetrated into Andorre ; and without one, one 
may sleep in the street. But the viguier was a 
modern Dogberry. Clearly he looked on me as a 
very suspicious personage. 4 Qu'est-ce que vous 
voulez faire a Andorre ?' said he, endeavour- 
ing with his stupid, meaningless eyes to look 
me through like a lynx, read the very in- 
nermost folds of my heart, and find there 
treason to his little republic. 1 Mais, Monsieur, 
je suis artiste ; j'ecris des livres. Je viens 
d'ecrire un livre sur les Pyrenees de la France, 
dont sa Majeste l'Empereur a bien voulu accep- 
ter une copie — en voici la preuve,' exhibiting 
my letter of thanks from the Chef du Cabinet 
de l'Empereur. 6 Je n'ai pas le temps de le lire. 
Qu'est-ce que vous voulez faire a Andorre ? II 
n'y a rien a Andorre.' 

'Monsieur, je suis botaniste, je cherche les 
fLeurs dans les montagnes pour les decrire dans 
mon livre.' 

6 Des fleurs ! II y a des fleurs en France.' 



TAKASCOK 



41 



4 Yes,' thought I ; 6 and there be rivers in 
Wales, look you, and there be rivers in Macedon, 
and there be salmon in both.' 4 The French 
flowers,' I answered, 4 are all well known and 
described by others ; those of Andorre are not. 
I am going on to Spain to visit the Spanish 
Pyrenees, and wish to go by Andorre. I am 
told it is necessary to have a recommendation 
from the viguier, or otherwise I should have 
to sleep in the street. I hope you will not 
refuse me one.' 

4 And where,' said he, 4 are your papers ? 
How do I know who you are, or what you 
want? And then, if anything is wrong, M. 
St. Andre will be to blame ! ' I handed him my 
passport and the letter from the Chef du Cabi- 
net, which proved I was an author by profes- 
sion. He tossed the first indignantly aside. 
4 C'est en Anglais,' said he, — 4 mais vise par el Con- 
suelo d'Espagna.' Qu'est-ce que 9a fait? et la 
lettre, elle n'est bonne a rien. Vous n'avez pas de 
papiers, et vous me demandez des recommanda- 
tions en Andorre ? Yous auriez du m'apporter 
des lettres de M. le Prefet de Foix.' 

4 M. le Prefet told me to come here.' But I 
might as well have talked to a stone wall. 



42 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN, 



Monsieur le Viguier was a little great man, 
very great in his own eyes, and of crass 
ignorance. He had determined to look upon me 
as a spy, a traitor, a revolutionist, God knows 
what. He eyed me as if I were a bomb ready 
to explode under his feet ; and, absurd as it was, 
to find myself suddenly become of such con- 
sequence as to be thought dangerous to the 
safety of the republic of Andorre, there was 
nothing to be done but to return to Foix, and 
again petition M. le Prefet de Foix. I returned 
accordingly in an open carriage belonging to the 
rival hotel, La Coste ; and the drive, though 
one of great beauty, did not add to my comfort, 
for it increased my cold and neuralgia. When 
I got down, the garqons at the hotel La Coste 
objected to my carpet-bag remaining till 
fetched by the porter of the Hotel Eousse, so I 
carried it myself. I put this in as a tit-bit for 
my critics to pounce on ; who one and all 
object, not to my book, but to my economising 
francs and half-francs, and carrying my own 
carpet-bag. All I can say is, — gentlemen, if any 
of you are near death, and will, kindly remem- 
bering my poverty and hard way of life, leave 
me five thousand pounds, I shall be grateful to 



FOIX. 



43 



you the rest of my days, and thereafter will not 
economise half-francs ; but to find fault without 
aiding me to a more luxurious mode of exist- 
ence is unreasonable and unkind. The public 
has been more generous. It helps me in the 
best way in which honourable poverty can be 
helped. It buys my books, and thus enables 
me to help myself. God willing, thanks to its 
favour, I shall one day be better off, if I live. 

M. le Prefet de Foix, or rather his subordi- 
nate, was very polite, but cautious ; he did 
not like to commit himself, was but recently 
come to Foix, and did not perfectly know les 
usages, but he would direct a man in attend- 
ance to take me to Monsieur Lafitte. M. 
Lafitte knew Andorre; he could give me any 
information I needed. The huissier, or clerk, 
or whatever he was, called magisterially to his 
wife for his portefeuille ; and thus armed with 
the badge of his office, conducted me, to my 
great amusement, through the narrow, dirty 
little streets of Foix, everybody staring at the 
man with the portfolio in his hand, and the 
Englishwoman in the large flapping Leghorn 
hat, walking by his side so quietly, who had no 
doubt been taken en flagrant delit. M. Lafitte 



44 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

habitually dined at the pension de l'Hotel 
Eousse; he soon arrived there, the messenger 
gave M. le Prefet's message, and I told my tale. 
6 I will call upon you at eight o'clock this even- 
ing,' said M. Lafitte. ' In that time I shall have 
seen a person who I think will be able to help 
you.' So I mounted to my chamber, had a trout 
for my dinner, and, to amuse myself, studied the 
bill I had paid in such a hurry that morning. 
Its contents amazed and angered me. It was 
the first time in all my travels in France that I 
had ever been charged for a bougie. One half 
candle had lasted me all the four days I had 
spent at Foix, and to be charged two francs 
for it, when a pound of bougies costs eighteen 
sous, was too much. The degradation du tapis 
was harder still to digest. In plain English, I 
had been treated as a rich Anglaise, and 
victimised. I descended to make my complaints. 
Madame Eousse was inflexible. She swore 
Keeper had dirtied the rug. It was false, and 
she knew it, and I told her so, adding, I should 
put her bill into my book. ' Qu'est-ce que 9a 
me fait ? ' demanded she insolently. 4 To prevent 
two thousand English people, who may happen 
to read my book, Madame, from coming chez 



FOIX. 



45 



vous.' There was no redress to be obtained, 
however ; but as I mention where I am made 
comfortable and well treated, I deem it right to 
mention where I am wronged ; and associating 
as I do with Frenchwomen of moderate means, 
I know the exact price I ought to pay, and 
which these ladies pay at hotels. The degraded 
tapis was a narrow little common rug, whose 
price, when new, was precisely four francs and a 
half. I have priced many such at Bagneres and 
elsewhere, and since I came to Ax, my land- 
lady has bought several new ones, of far supe- 
rior quality, at four francs each, of a travel- 
ling merchant. 

M. Lafitte kept his word ; he came in the 
evening, accompanied by M. Tolede, a gentle- 
man-hke Spaniard, professor of Spanish at the 
College de Foix, and told me that if I would 
give him, M. Lafitte, a copy of my work when 
written, M. Tolede would give me letters from 
four children belonging to the principal families 
of Andorre, who were under Iris care at the 
College de Foix, to their parents, which was 
the best introduction I could have. I thought 
so too, and agreed, telling him the book could 
not be translated except by permission of my 



46 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



publisher. He said he had a friend at Toulouse 
who understood English well, and would read 
it. It might be very interesting to English 
people who knew nothing about France and 
Spain, and not at all interesting to those who 
knew both countries well ; if it was likely to 
be generally interesting, his friend was well 
able to translate it, and could, no doubt, make 
an arrangement with 4 mon editeur,' as a pub- 
lisher is called in France. 

M. Tolede asked if I was a good walker, and 
if I had strong shoes. 4 The roads,' said he, 
e are so bad in Andorre, you will often have to 
dismount and walk.' I told him I had a pair 
of men's shoes. 4 Then, ' said he, 4 half the 
battle is over. Once in Spain your difficulties 
will be over. The Andorrans in general are a 
very dirty race. I don't know how you will get 
on there, but in Spain you will find comfort 
and cleanliness.' 6 But in the mountains,' said 
I, 4 I am told the mountaineers live by contre- 
bandisme and brigandage, and am afraid of 
being robbed and murdered.' 4 N'ayez pas 
peur,' he answered ; 4 c'etait comme 9a autrefois, 
apres la guerre, quand le gouvernement n'etait 
pas assure. Maintenant tout est tranquille, et 



FOIX. 



47 



les rnontagnards espagnols sont bons enfants.' 
This was cheering, for I felt nervous about this 
Spanish tour. I thanked both gentlemen for 
their courtesy, and they bade me good-night, 
and the next morning M. Tolede sent me some 
letters of introduction. 



48 



OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



CHAPTEK III. 



AX. 



At the railway station, where one is obliged to 
take a billet de correspondance to insure a place 
in the old diligence, the superintendent, M. 
Thouniin, who found me lounging about the 
station, waiting for its arrival, offered to show 
me his cabinet of curiosities. He had things 
worth seeing. Foix is very rich in minerals ; 
there are iron mines, and lead is also found in 
the lodes. M. Thoumin had some splendid 
specimens of iron ore, of crystals, stalactites 
from a neighbouring cavern, which, he told me, 
was full of them, antediluvian fossils, and other 
curious productions of the country. Some of 
the stalactites were singular in form ; they re- 
sembled the wooden trees of a child's toy farm- 
house ; upon slender little stems, the thickness 
of a drawing pencil, grew little oval tufts. I 



AX. 



49 



could not fancy them natural ; I imagined they 
were plants or toy trees petrified by being 
placed under a stream of water like the drop- 
ping well at Knaresboro', but was told that it 
was their natural conformation. At last the 
coach came ; Keeper and my bag were hoisted 
on the roof, Keeper astonishing everybody by 
the celerity and adroitness with which he 
climbed up the ladder. 'Ce n'est pas pour la 
premiere fois ! ' cried the conductor, amazed ; 
and I, a lady, and a gentleman, got into the 
coupe. From the coupe I had a good view of the 
rich and beautiful, though narrow, valley, which 
narrows more and more as one approaches the 
heart of the mountains. Every time the road 
turned, new combinations of hills rising above 
hills — they were scarcely to be called mountains 
— gave new beauty to the scenery. The hills 
are generally rather rounded, at least towards 
the base, but very irregular in outline. Some- 
times the summit is broken into peaks ; some- 
times a bare bluff of granite rock juts out grand 
and naked above the foaming Ariege. Most of 
them are partly covered with stunted trees, or 
cultivated nearly to the top ; on a few grow 
dark patches of pine-trees. All have brighter 

E 



50 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

colouring and deeper and more varied shadows 
than the loftier mountains of Bagneres and Beam. 
On the most distant, snow still lies, contrasting 
beautifully, and yet harmonising, with the green 
trees and fields, and the time-stained granite 
rocks. The whole of this long valley gives one 
the idea that it has been gradually produced in 
the course of asons of ages, by the waters of the 
Ariege ever wearing their channel deeper, and 
the melting of the snows upon the heights. 
In some places scarcely a narrow field lies on 
each side the road, on the banks of the river. 
At Les Bains d'Ussat the river seemed to divide 
into many small streams, each bounding a narrow 
green meadow, shaded by poplars, alders, and 
willows. The place seemed to consist of a few 
hotels, and bains, and lodging-houses. The best 
hotel is kept by Madame Delpeche, the wife of 
a banker of Pamiers, and a very nice woman. 
Her husband was forced to take this property as 
a bad debt, and being unable to sell it, his wife, 
though not brought up to anything of the sort, 
undertook to manage the concern. The house 
has been newly decorated, and newly furnished 
from garret to cellar, and under the new ad- 
ministration is successful during the short season 



AX. 



51 



of three months. In winter all the hotels of 
Ussat are shut up. The valley is just traversable 
for the posts, and that is all. At one hotel rny 
companions descended, and were succeeded by 
two fat men. One could have played Falstaff 
unstuffed, and his features resembled those as- 
signed the chivalrous knight by immemorial 
custom. I had not too much room in the coupe. 
What a strange thing it is, by the way, this power 
that authors have of not merely inventing a 
character but a form, which shall be for centu- 
ries — perhaps while the world lasts — as real and 
familiar to all well-informed people as that of 
any living friend. When will Falstaff, and Don 
Quixote, and Sancho Panza, and Mr. Pickwick, 
cease to exist? By-and-by, my companions 
pointed out to each other and to me St. Barthe- 
lemi, one of the loftiest of this portion of the 
Pyrenees, but I did not see the snows and gla- 
ciers, of which Murray speaks, from my coupe. 
We passed one or two ruined castles, in particu- 
lar that of Lordat, near Les Cabanes. 4 C'etait 
de la,' said one of them, 6 que les grands seigneurs 
d'autrefois, comme un aigle de son nid, domi- 
naient et ravageaient le pays.' ' Oui,' answered 
the other, ' et quand le Seigneur de Lordat passait 

E 2 



52 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

pres d'un autre chateau non loin d'ici mais 
plus petit, il fallait que le chatelain descendit sur 
le pont pour lui offrir un verre d'eau, seulement 
pour faire voir qu'il etait son serviteur.' 'C'est 
bien,' said we both, 4 que ces temps sont passes.' 
■ C'est bien ' — but are the people much happier 
even now in wealthy England, in Ireland, in 
Scotland, or in France ? Here, in this part of 
L'Ariege, I heard my companions say they 
suffered much. In summer they worked hard 
to gain slender crops from the stony poor soil ; 
in winter they were half buried in snow ; and 
wood must be dear, for as nothing but wood is 
obtainable as fuel — and no one scarcely plants — 
it necessarily becomes scarcer every year. As 
the evening closed in we reached Ax. A wed- 
ding party was promenading up the street 
with a trumpeter behind them to invite people 
to dance at the wedding. The bridegroom, in 
his uniform of a douanier, looked rather sheep- 
ish, as bridegrooms generally do ; but the bride, 
all in white with her white chaplet, appeared to 
me one of the prettiest girls I ever saw. As she 
turned and nodded and smiled to our coachman, 
who was an acquaintance, her face was quite 
radiant with happiness. The diligence stopped 



AX. 53 

at the hotel of M. Sicre, ' maitre de postes aux 
chevaux.' I stopped there likewise, quite worn 
out by my long day's journey and the being 
squeezed to a mummy by Falstaff and his friend. 
The exterior of the hotel is not very promising, 
but I was shown to a clean room with a boarded 
floor, which Mdlle. Sicre assured me was washed. 
I believe her ; for, though Keeper slept in my 
room, I had no insect plagues. I meant only 
to stay a day or two at Ax, but I find here 
kindness, civility, and attention, and I am so 
weak I can hardly sit up, quite unfit for travel- 
ling on horseback to Andorre. Instead of a rude 
valet coming to my bedroom door as at the 
Hotel Eousse at Foix, and threatening to 6 l'en- 
foncer,' if I, who was in bed, did not instantly 
open it to let in my dog — a threat he nearly 
executed, for he kicked it with such force, it 
would have burst open had it not been locked, 
and the insult was intentional, because I had 
refused to allow him to enter and insisted on the 
bonne waiting on me while I was ill — there is a 
pretty, civil, neat bonne, named Marcelhne, to do 
the bedrooms. Behind the house is a good-sized 
garden, shaded by platanes and sweet-scented 
lime-trees, in the midst of which plays a good- 



54 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

sized fountain ; and opposite the house, fronting 
the row of trees, are a range of handsome marble 
baths for bathers. There are various springs at 
Ax ; some of them hot, others cold ; some are 
sulphurous, others impregnated with iron ; and 
they are a good deal frequented. My landlord 
has just built a large and handsome salon, look- 
ing on one side into the garden, on the other 
into a little court full of flowers, where plays 
another little fountain. And here in la saison 
they dance every night. Above the baths is a 
jarclinpotager, whence one has a pleasant view of 
the surrounding hills, and one set of apartments 
opens upon it. Here, stealing currants (not 
however without permission given by Mdlle. 
Charlotte), I found, suspended by two threads 
to a currant branch, the nest of a solitary wasp. 
She was so busy laying eggs or constructing new 
cells on the side furthest from me, that she did 
not even notice me when I touched it with my 
finger. It is a pretty delicate little nest, about 
the size of a middle-sized Siberian crab. The 
cells are perfect hexagons, like those of the bee, 
and each is like a long sheath, open at one end, 
probably that she may add new cells ; for, waxed 
up half-way down, as in the bees'-comb, I saw a 



AX. 



55 



pupa. I have never been able to get a good 
view of the insect herself, as she works on the 
side next a wall that I cannot get to, but she 
appears much like the conmion wasp, only 
rather smaller bodied, and with a more pointed 
tail and narrower wings, I want to take the 
nest, but am afraid of being stung ; and only 
fancy carrying a nest of wasp larvae to hatch in 
one's bonnet-box, as they would be sure to do 
en route. To-day the wasp is at work on my 
side, constructing new cells. She is smaller 
than the common wasp and darker, her body is 
black, banded with narrow yellow stripes, her 
wings are dark brown, her legs yellow, her 
head larger than the common wasp and black. 
I like Ax extremely. One is not so covered 
with white dust when one walks along the road 
as at Avignon, Nismes, and Foix. There are 
innumerable little green valleys, and woods, and 
shady nooks, where I like to stroll now I am able 
again to walk — for the first few days I could 
only sit in the garden, I had scarcely strength 
left to speak — and everywhere among the fields 
murmur little cascades or rivulets, carrying the 
precious waters to the different bathing establish- 
ments, of which l'Hotel Sicre is decidedly the 



56 OYER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



first in cleanliness and comfort. I like sitting 
idle under the lime-trees in the garden, listening 
to the song of the birds and the soft murmuring 
of the fountain, and breathing the sweet air of 
jessamine and limes. There I breakfast and 
dine, for two meals a day are all I can manage 
to eat. It is months since I had a desire for 
food, and I only eat as a duty ; and there, when 
I am well enough, I mend my stockings or write 
up my journal. Two of the demoiselles Sicre are 
well-informed, educated women. Mcllle. Char- 
lotte has a real genius for music, and sings well. 
One day, she and I and the two Mdes. Delpeche, 
one of whom also had an inexhaustible repertoire 
of French romances, strolled to the pare, and 
thence to a pretty little wood where rises La fon- 
taine Ferrugineuse, and they sang song after song 
together, or alone. This French life is a curious 
mixture of refinement and its opposite. This 
house is cleaner than any I have seen since I left 
Paris ; but even here, how much that to English 
ideas is necessary is left undone ! How long 
will it be before the French learn to wash kitchen 
floors and entrances and stairs daily ? I suppose 
they are now what our ancestors were two 
hundred years ago as to internal and domestic 



AX. 



57 



comforts. They understand outward show, 
large rooms, handsome furniture, magnificent 
public buildings, jewels, and dress; so did our 
ancestors, better far than we of the present day, 
who can but copy feebly the grandeur of their 
cathedrals, castles, and halls ; but to them, as to 
the modern French, household comfort was un- 
known. They are, however, happy in their own 
way — that is to say, those who have means. 
One of the Mdlles. Sicre is married to the doctor 
of the town, and, having associated a good 
deal with the family, I have seen something of 
French domestic life in Ax. The doctor's 
daughters are two pretty girls, and one has a 
very fine voice. Like their aunts, they are 
bonnes menageres, and will make good wives. 
They make all their own dresses, they cook, and 
they iron all the linen the bonne has washed. 
In England we have carried refinement so far 
that most young girls in the middle classes of 
life would fancy themselves degraded by these 
domestic duties ; here they are cheerfully per- 
formed and honestly avowed. ' J'ai repasse ma 
robe dTndienne. Comment la trouvez-vous ? ' 
said Mdlle. Eosa, arriving in all the glory of a 
neat, fresh-looking, buff print gown, and purple 



.18 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

necktie to her little collarette. I think our 
would-be young ladies in England — for it is 
always those who are of the lowest family who 
are the proudest and idlest — might learn much 
from these French skirls. A man here in France 
knows that he marries a helpmate ; in England 
a man too often marries only a drag, who will 
put her hand to nothing useful. 

I strolled so far with Keeper one day, that I 
found myself at Merens — a little village some 
three or four miles from Ax. I did not in- 
tend to go so far, but was beguiled by the wild 
beauty of the scenery, and I wanted also to try 
my strength before setting out for Andorre. 
The road lay up a mountain defile, in places so 
narrow, it might almost have been called a 
chasm. At the base of the rocks on one side, the 
Ariege dashed over a bed of huge stones. At 
every bend in the road the scene changed. 
Here were rounded hills with corn-fields and 
woods half-way up their sides ; there, huge 
granite rocks, bare and gloomy, frowned above 
the torrent ; there, an avalanche of huge stones 
covered the hill-side. In the fields grew beauti- 
ful field flowers. I noticed two kinds of pink. 
One, the small pink we name Indian ; the 



AX. 



59 



other, the mule pink. In one place, the sloping 
meadow bank towards the river was crimson 
with their blossoms, contrasting beautifully with 
a large bed close by, of turquoise blue forget-me- 
not, and the rich golden hue of the summer 
buttercup. In some fields I saw a new flower 
with a white glittering corolla, like the stiff 
petals of the everlasting ; and in the fissures 
of the rocks grew a beautiful plant, about three 
feet high, with divided leaves like a small horse 
chestnut, and white tassels of flowers like the 
male flowers of the chestnut. There were, 
besides, the smaller and the larger scabious, cam- 
panula of different kinds, corn-flowers, and mar- 
guerites. I said to myself, ' I will gather these 
treasures as I return. ' Arrived at Merens, I went 
to the Hotel Sicre, kept by a cousin of the Ax 
family. The mistress was out, so I made my way 
into the salon, turned for the nonce into a linen- 
draper's shop, and occupied by an itinerant ped- 
lar and his wife, who gave me a chair, and sent 
for the hostess. This is the way in which these 
mountain towns are supplied with necessaries, 
for the shops, even in Ax, are few and worth- 
less. That very morning, going to the market 
with Mdlle. Charlotte to buy cherries, which cost 



60 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

here a sou the pound, she joyously hailed the 
arrival of 6 Gabrielle,' another itinerant merchant, 
who, with her husband, was busily unpacking 
stores of prints, muslins, and popelines, from a 
huge unwieldy-looking vehicle, half cart, half 
carriage, in 'la Place.' Even in the season, there 
are no shops as at Luchon, and Bagneres de 
Bigorre. All articles of dress are dear in France, 
especially in the provinces. I asked the price 
of a coarse spotted alpaca at Merens ; it was two 
francs and a half, about two shillings the metre, 
which is rather longer than an English yard. In 
the room were three or four girls of twelve or 
thirteen, each with a coloured wadded cap on 
her head, a coloured handkerchief crossed over 
the breast, dirty frocks, and naked feet. Almost 
all the women and girls here go barelegged in 
summer. Knitting in hand, they stood and 
stared at VAnglaise, or tumbled the merchant's 
goods about with their dirty little paws, with 
the insouciance of French children, who never 
seem to think they can be in the way, and have 
no respect for superior rank. At l'Hotel Sicre, 
the dirty little brats are a continual annoyance 
to me ; they come by half-dozens at a time to 
dabble in the fountains, and drink water out of 



AX. 



61 



various little toys, and stare at me as I breakfast, 
write, or dine, and seat themselves on the benches 
as if they were their own property. I scold 
them out twenty times a day — afraid of the 
company they may bring with them. Yesterday, 
a quarter of an hour after I had chased them 
away, they returned — a troop of four, the eldest 
not five years old. Madame Delpeche and I 
demanded angrily what they wanted. The 
eldest replied with a dignified sense of the irre- 
fragable right she had now to be here, that they 
came to wash their pocket-handkerchiefs! Each 
flourished a rag — they proceeded with great 
state to the washing fountain at the end of the 
baths, and having there fait leur lessive, returned 
to our fountain in the garden, to rinse the 
mouchoirs, which they continued to do, with an 
air of mingled defiance and injured innocence, 
for at least half an hour. As to us we were 
really too much amused to scold — we were fairly 
beaten by the tiny washerwomen, for we could 
not keep our countenances. This want of privacy, 
however, is to English ideas a great nuisance. 
Even now while I write, a man comes into the 
garden leaning on two sticks, for he is lame. 
The garden gate is necessarily open all day, that 



62 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

bathers may come in, but Monsieur — for every- 
body is Monsieur or Madame in France — plants 
himself beside the fountain, where he stands, 
leaning on his two sticks, looking at me. I look 
up from my writing at him, but he never flinches 
or moves ; there he stands for at least half 
an hour, staring at the Englishwoman sitting 
writing on a small table under the lime-tree, as 
if I was a professor of the black art. Perhaps 
he thinks I am. 

When the hostess came, I ordered some milk, 
bread, and an omelette. The omelette was made 
with grease and utterly uneatable. And here I 
must say a word about the folly of parents' ex- 
treme watchfulness as to their children's food. 
I was brought up by a strict aunt, who thought 
privation of all pleasure was the true education. 
I was never allowed to taste soup, or sauce, 
or gravy. A slice of meat and a little bread 
and potato was my dinner ; pastry or fruit I 
rarely had. My breakfast and tea were milk 
and water and dry bread. A slice of bread and 
butter was a treat thought of for a week. The 
consequence is, that my stomach cannot digest 
the smallest amount of fat or grease. I am con- 
tinually suffering from the over-strictness of my 



AX 



63 



early diet ; while my sisters, who had whatever 
was on their parents' table, had good digestions 
and better health. I have known many children 
of great families brought up in the same way ; 
in fact it is rather the fashion among a certain 
class in England ; they fancy it insures a good 
complexion ; instead, it insures liver complaints 
and jaundice, from one or other of which, all 
those ladies, like myself, suffered. A caged bird 
or animal will not thrive without variety of diet, 
neither does the human being. 

However, the bread and the milk were good, 
and a person is not much to be pitied who, 
after a long mountain walk, gets a fresh egg, 
good bread, and a quart of rich scalded milk. 

As I left Merens, an old peasant going to work 
in her fields joined me. She deplored the dry 
weather ; the season has been unusually dry ; 
but the summer is never wet here as in Les 
Hautes Pyrenees. There is seldom much rain 
after May, I am told. Scarcely had I parted 
from the old woman when drops began to fall. 
I quickened my pace, not daring to return to 
Merens lest the MdUes. Sicre should be uneasy 
about me, and fearing that if I did, the evening 
might turn out wet, and prevent my return alto- 



64 OYER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

gether. Just as it rained heavily I got to a 
cabin, where I asked shelter. The barelegged 
dirty women who tenanted it brought me a chair, 
and I sat in the stable, where there was scarcely 
room for even that chair, and they with two 
little children sat down on the door-step, not to 
incommode me. I felt I was the intruder, and 
thinking the stable would probably be cleaner 
than the house, preferred remaining there. So 
I pushed my chair back among some sheep 
hurdles, and made room for them all, and they 
sat on the staircase, for a common arrangement 
among French peasants is the stable below and 
a room over it as their dwelling. The grand- 
mother was ugly as well as old, but had a good 
expression ; the mother, for all her dirt and rags, 
had a fine face ; and the two children, Pauline 
and Marie, aged four and two years, were 
cherubs. Pauline was a merry little brunette, 
with hazel eyes and curling flaxen hair ; but 
Marie might have been a little countess, so per- 
fect were her slender hmbs, her delicate hands 
and feet. She had large soft blue-grey eyes 
and fair hair, with the angelic sweetness of smile 
which makes one feel almost sure that one so 
nearly an angel will never live to womanhood. 



AX. 



65 



I did not emulate Wordsworth's Matthew — I 
could not say I looked on her extreme loveliness, 
4 and did not wish her mine.' I envied her, 
and questioned in myself whether in all her dirt 
and poverty, having known no better lot, the 
evidently contented mother of children, loving 
and beloved, was not far happier, perhaps also 
a far nobler woman in God's sight, than the more 
highly cultivated solitary woman who sat beside 
her. If I had been rich I would have tried to 
buy that child, and bring it up as mine, but per- 
haps it was well I am not. Children inherit 
love, and that cannot be bought or sold. 4 Dear 
little creatures,' said an uncle of mine, 4 they 
bring love along with them.' How rarely are 
aunts beloved by the children they educate ! 
The fault is in them. They do not bring to the 
task they undertake, the mother's heart ; where 
they can and do, they have a parent's rights, and 
obtain filial love. 

I played at bo-peep with Pauline, till the little 
one laughed and crowed with delight ; then 
when the rain cleared I gave them two sous and 
started anew. I had to shelter once more before 
reaching Ax, getting thoroughly drenched be- 
fore I did ; but except for my flowers — my 

F 



66 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

precious herb Christopher, as I called the ele- 
gant palmated plant, though I knew it was not 
a herb Christopher — and rny crimson pinks, 
and the white flower I wanted to gather and 
class, if I could, I rather enjoyed the rain than 
otherwise. How loaded the air was with the 
scent of all those meadow flowers, literally 
heavy with honeyed fragrance ; it was like 
breathing honey instead of eating it ; and how 
reviving the scent of the rain-moistened earth 
and the trees ! 

Every now and then, as I walked along, the 
thunder rolled like a peal of artillery amid the 
mountain-tops ; now and then there was a flash 
of sheet-lightning ; twice, the lightning played 
above my head like an aureole, and all round 
my hat shone flashes of blue and pink flame ; 
but as I felt I was unhurt, I was not frightened. 
The Eomans had a belief that, when lightning 
thus played on a person's head, or struck a 
house without doing harm, it was an omen of 
good fortune ; but what good fortune can come 
now to me ? 

I felt rather nervous, for these mountain 
storms sometimes become dangerous ; and be- 
sides an umbrella, and that detestable iron- 



AX. 



67 



hooped crinoline, I had Keeper's iron chain in 
my hand. I had taken it, intending to wash 
liirn in the river near some green fields, where 
he could roll himself dry, but found none suit- 
able. Once I thought of calling him and coiling 
it round his neck, but then I thought if he 
should be struck dead before my eyes, I should 
feel as if I had killed him ; so I carried it home 
myself. 

As I passed through La Pacaudiere, in Au- 
vergne, I heard the details of a sad accident 
in the mountains. A postman and two gens 
d'armes, traversing the hill-side, were struck by 
lightning. The two gens d' amies were instan- 
taneously killed; the clothes of one were torn 
from him ; he was completely stripped naked, 
except his boots, by the electric fluid. The 
postman's eyes were much dazzled by the flash, 
and he was dreadfully frightened by his fall, 
and the death of his two companions ; but he 
was nearly recovered the day I passed — two 
days after the accident. Both the men killed 
left a wife and family. 

Fancy the distress of the poor wives, whose 
husbands had left them in perfect health and 
strength only a few hours before ! What sor- 

F 2 



68 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

row there is in the world ; one might almost 
say it was all sorrow. Would that Dr. Cum- 
ming w^ere right, and that the millennium was 
indeed drawing near, and after it, the destruc- 
tion of evil. 

Keeper made for a metairie. and sheltered in 
the door-way, and I followed. The farmer's 
wife invited me up-stairs, and I went. It was a 
long large room, not very dirty according to 
French ideas, but rather dark, though it had 
three small windows, and the light admitted 
from a door opening into an inner chamber and 
the staircase. Opposite the latter was an open 
chimney, flagged for some distance with stone, 
on which smouldered a few brands ; a baby in 
a wicker cradle — which had a thick stick pass- 
ing from the head to the foot, over which hung 
a wadded coverlet to exclude all air — was in 
front of it, rocked by a little girl. In this hot 
climate and weather, the French coddle up their 
children more than we do in winter ; but it 
seems to answer, for consumption is rare in 
France. Dr. Combe, and some of our first 
medical authorities, attribute its prevalence in 
England to the exposure to cold, the bare legs, 
and scanty petticoats worn by English children, 



AX. 



69 



which sow the seeds of consumption in their 
constitutions in early childhood. In one corner 
of the room was a square block of masonry, 
reaching to the ceiling — it was an oven. JNow 
I understood what a gentleman once told me, 
that in travelling in Tyrol, he had often slept on 
the top of the oven. Had there been a vacant 
space above, this oven would have made a tole- 
rably comfortable bedstead, though a little too 
short. Two beds stood in a corner ; over a 
table were three large bright scoured brass 
pans, and the crockery was all ranged in order 
in a plate-rack over another. But none of the 
tables seemed as if they had ever been washed ; 
people appear to dread water in France like a 
mad dog. I asked for milk, and having carefully 
rinsed a basin, la fermiere gave me some. I 
tendered payment, of course, but it was refused 
— I was welcome to the milk. These peasants 
seem pleased to be able to offer you anything ; 
and to force payment on them is clearly an 
affront. So I thanked the kind woman, and 
when it was fair, returned to Ax, well satisfied 
to have seen the interior of a peasant's house of 
the better class in the Ariege. 

Next day was Le Saint Jean— our Midsum- 



70 



OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



mer-day — a grand fete in the Pyrenees. A tall 
pine-tree was cut down, and planted in the space 
near the hospital for invalid soldiers, and as near 
the houses as was safe. A crown of white lilies 
and other flowers decorated its summit, and in 
the evening, when we all turned out to see 
the sight, its branches had been further orna- 
mented with small balls the size of oranges, 
containing gunpowder, while men were busy 
piling fagots and dry straw round the stem. It 
made one perforce think of the burning of here- 
tics that once took place. When all was com- 
plete, the priest came in procession from the 
church, with a boy bearing incense before him ; 
a kind of mass or benediction was said, the priest 
sprinkled the tree and fagots with holy water, 
and then, taking a lighted taper, set fire to the 
straw among them in various places. The dry 
fagots soon blazed high, and as the flames 
reached the balls of gunpowder, they exploded 
with the noise of artillery, reverberating grandly 
from the surrounding mountains. 

Fire is always beautiful. The long tongues 
of flame that leapt up from the crackling fagots, 
flickering and twisting round the stem of the 
tree, until they reached its branches, and the 



l'hospitalet. 



71 



balls of gunpowder exploding, sent forth showers 
of sparks on every side ; and the dark fantastic 
shadows cast on the faces of the crowd, and on 
the tall houses beyond ; the curving bridge in 
the foreground, the snow-wreathed Ariege that 
foamed over the huge boulders below it, and 
the wild, craggy, deep-shadowed, picturesque 
blue mountains, closing in the scene ; above 
which the stars were just beginning to gleam in 
the deep azure sky — was a scene well worthy a 
painter. I have been ten days at Ax, detained 
by illness, and there have been three benedictions 
or processions — the Fete Dieu, the St. Jean, and 
another. The priests encourage them as much 
as possible, as they amuse the people, gratify 
their love du spectacle, and increase their power 
— over the women at least. 

On the 26 th of June I left Ax with much 
regret, for I had been ill, and received there the 
kindness I needed ; and it is in itself a most 
lovely valley, full of picturesque and beautiful 
walks, and fields of loveliest rare flowers. M. 
Sicre wished to give a little pleasure to the two 
Madames Delpeche, and therefore it was ar- 
ranged that, instead of taking a guide, and going 
alone to the Hospitalet, they, the Juge de Paix 



72 



OVER THE PYEENEES INTO SPAIN. 



of Ax, Monsieur Lafitte ; Mdlle. Charlotte Sicre, 
and I, should all go together in a large open 
carriage, of the usual uncouth and unwieldy 
kind common in France. Before I quitted Ax, 
the demoiselles Sicre gave me a necklace of the 
jet of the country. It is not so brilliant a black 
as our Whitby jet, but I value it as pretty in 
itself, and a souvenir of people who showed 
me much kindness. In very sooth I dreaded 
leaving Ax — where I led a sort of dreamy, idle 
life under the lime-trees in the garden, listening 
to the plash of the fountain — to encounter the 
barbarous people I expected to meet in the 
wild mountain regions I was about to visit alone; 
and I was well pleased to have a merry party, 
whose presence at least broke the sense of 
dreariness which would have pressed on me had 
I left Ax alone. The two Madames Delpeche 
sang French romances most of the way, and 
there was much laughter and noise — though I 
felt sad at heart. I dreaded this Spanish journey 
more every day. 

The whole way from Ax to the Hospitalet is 
up a narrow mountain valley or ravine, at the 
bottom of which foams the snowy Ariege. It 
is impossible to describe the wild, savage, yet 



L'HOSPITALET. 



73 



exquisite beauty of this pass. At every turn of 
the road the scene varies ; now sternly grand 
and savage — now pastoral, wild, and picturesque. 
Above Merens, we passed a large waterfall that 
came foaming down over the rocks above our 
heads, and passing under the road, fell into the 
river below. ' A fortnight ago,' said our driver, 
6 the fall of water rendered this road quite im- 
passable ; the road was covered with water from 
the meltiDg of the snow.' I have not therefore 
really lost much time, though I have been de- 
tained at Foix and Ax by illness ; for I could 
not have traversed Andorre until the melting 
of the snow rendered the roads passable. 

The Hospitalet is the last village in the Ariege, 
and miserably dirty. We took our provisions 
to the douane, to the young bride whom I met 
crowned with her white couronne de Mariee, as I 
entered Ax. Imra had been Mdlle. Sicre's lingere, 
and had married a donanier, and exchanged that 
pleasant httle town for the bleak, dreary, deso- 
late Hospitalet ; and our dinner was now to be 
spread in her room, as there were no shady 
fields where we could sit and eat it. The apart- 
ment, au troisieme, consisted of two rooms — a 
good-sized front room looking into the street, 



74 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

and an inner one without window, for Monsieur 
le mari, behind it. The furniture was merely 
two deal tables, two beds, a press containing 
some linen, and a little crockery, two or three 
shelves of pots and pans, and a few chairs ; and 
on a long row of pegs hung her husband's gar- 
ments, her own, and her crinoline. They had 
but about thirty pounds a year to live upon ; 
but Imra had married for love, and seemed as 
happy as a queen. Had she been able to re- 
main in Ax, their income would have been nearly 
doubled, as she was a good ironer and work- 
woman ; and Mdlle. Sicre, dite 6 EAgneau ' (for 
everybody here has a sobriquet, by which they 
are better known than by their real name) was 
always bewailing her loss ; but these people are 
accustomed to live on a little, and I have no doubt 
Imra is happier in her poverty at the Hospitalet, 
than she would have been remaining better off, 
but separated from the man she loved, at Ax. 
She fried our eggs and boiled our coffee, and 
when we had devoured that, and the cold ham 
and fowl we had brought with us, giving a 
share to our driver and Imra, we went to visit 
M. le Cure, to inquire about a guide for my 
next day's journey to Andorre. M. le Cure was 



l'hospitalet. 



75 



a gentleman-like agreeable man, and recom- 
mended a certain Jerome Eoan, dite Tatine, as 
mi homme de confiance, who would take good 
care of me ; and it was agreed I should sleep 
that night at the Hospitalet, in Imra's room, and 
start with him on horseback at four the next 
morning, for Andorre la Yieja — i.e. the old town 
of Andorre. I was to give him seven francs 
for that day, and seven for the day he would 
lose in returning to the Hospitalet ; and he was 
to provide for himself and his horse. This ar- 
rangement made, we walked with M. le Cure as 
far as the wretched little cabin on the mountain- 
side, where the douaniers watch in turn, and 
sleep. Imra and Madame Delpeche's maid were 
already there, for her husband had kept watch 
the preceding night. There, while the others 
rested at the douane, I mounted the rocks and 
botanised. I found several old Pyrenean friends, 
and some new plants. There was the Gentiana 
lutea, a tall, handsome-leaved plant, whose 
wide, straight leaves I had gathered on the Col 
d'Aspin, but whose spike of small yellow flowers 
I had never seen till now. I cannot imagine why 
it is called a gentian ; it does not in any way 
resemble one ; its petals are divided instead of 



76 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



forming a cup, and its leaves in no way resemble 
those of any other gentianella I know. There 
was also the delicate little white lily of Argeles, 
and another still prettier, more salver or bell- 
shaped, whose chalices, all leaning one way, are 
a pure white. I found also the pretty bright- 
eyed, crimson mountain pink ; a handsome 
yellow flower, somewhat like a French mari- 
gold, but much taller; the greater and the lesser 
blue centaury, and many common English, wild 
flowers : and then we returned to the Hospitalet, 
my friends — for friends they had become — to 
return home, and I to remain alone in Imra's 
gloomy, comfortless room, which, nathless, to 
her was a paradise. 

I can conceive no place more dreary than the 
Hospitalet. Even in summer nothing can be 
procured there, except goats' milk and eggs. 
There is no butcher there, not even a village 
shop. Coffee, candles, salt, sugar, everything 
has to be fetched a long five hours' mountain 
journey from Ax. I wanted coffee ; Imra had 
to borrow some of M. le Cure. Of course I 
gave her money to buy some, but none was to 
be bought ; it could only be borrowed. The 
bare mountains produce no trees ; brushwood is 



l'hospitalet. 



77 



scarce, and the poor must be badly off for firing 
in winter. The entrance to all the houses is a 
cobble-paved passage, often — indeed generally 
— leading to a stable. M. le Cure's lodgings 
were little better than Imra's, and in the winter 
the snow often reaches the second story of the 
houses. 6 Tiens, Mademoiselle,' said Imra's hus- 
band ; £ last winter I got out of that window, 
la troisieme, into the street ; the snow reached 
to there.' A pleasant abode truly ! But what 
true-hearted woman cares where she lives, pro- 
vided it is with the husband of her choice? 
Imra's husband was a quiet, civil young man, 
and seemed very fond of and attentive to his 
young wife, though he privately confided to me, 
what I had guessed before — that the promenad- 
ing about on his wedding-day 4 lui etait beau- 
coup a charge — one was obliged to parade the 
town and be stared at.' He seemed thankful it 
was over. 

After I had had cafe, M. le Cure, and Mdlle. 
the schoolmistress of the village, came to walk 
out and botanise with me. He brought with 
him an old herbal, not of much use, and I was 
glad to be able to offer him, in return for all his 
civilities and his coffee, the £ Flora des Pyrenees ' 



78 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



of M. Philippe, which I had brought with me, 
but which proved of little use to me now I had 
no longer M. Philippe to apply to for help, as I 
do not understand the French terms without a 
botanical dictionary, and have no room for 
more learned lumber in my carpet-bag. 

I did not pass a pleasant night in Imra's dwel- 
ling ; the bugs gave me no peace ; I never closed 
my eyes, and it was a relief to me when my 
guide, Eoan, dite Tatine, knocked at my door, 
and said it was time to rise. Imra' got up also, 
and made me some coffee, and gave me some 
brandy, for I felt ill and faint. I was to pay 
her a franc for my bed ; I gave her three francs 
and a half ; more I dared not give her, be- 
cause I had been unable to change my bank- 
notes at Ax, and had barely sufficient to bear 
my expenses into Spain ; but knowing she was 
poor I wished to give her a little wedding gift, 
so I opened my sac and gave her a pair of 
sleeves and two collars. In fact I have but 
120 francs, and how I am to get on I don't 
know. It never occurred to me at Foix, that 
I could not change English five-pound bank- 
notes or circular notes at Ax, neither did I 
contemplate remaining there above a couple of 



L'HOSPITALET. 



79 



days at most, and knowing there is a heavy 
loss in changing French money into Spanish, I 
wished to have as little as I could. So that 
when I had paid L'Agneau, who keeps the 
books, I had little left for my long mountain 
journey. The morning air was chill, and I was 
glad of my water-proof cloak, as well as my 
merino jacket, but it was clear and bright, and 
augured well for our journey. What a figure 
I should have cut to eyes polite could they 
have seen me at 5 a.m., following my guide up 
the dirty little streets of L'Hospitalet in my 
cloak and flapping Leghorn hat, and by the aid 
of a chair mounting a lean sorry beast not much 
unlike the celebrated Eosinante in leanness and 
form ; accoutred with an old leathern bridle 
fastened beneath the animal's head with rope, 
and eked out with whipcord to lengthen it; a 
cumbrous man's saddle, over which was an 
old woollen rug ; a sack with my shawl, con- 
taining my guide-books, &c, at one end, and 
a small tin bonnet-box in the other ; while 
behind me was strapped my carpet-bag of 
clothes, and my small travelling-bag, and in 
my hand, instead of a whip, I flourished the 
well-known 6 Mrs. Gamp' — a sobriquet my 



80 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



friends have been pleased to bestow on the 
shabby umbrella I invariably carry with rne. 
How r can I have a decent umbrella, when it 
has to serve as a walking-stick, a riding- whip, a 
crook to pull down flowers or fruits, or even to 
drag rare aquatic plants out of the brooks ? 

As to my stirrup — a rare thing to obtain 
at all in this part of the world — it also was 
a pleasing combination of cord and knotted 
leather, the last necessary to make it the proper 
length, being anything but soft or agreeable 
to one's limbs. How thankful — as from a chair 
I ascended above my saddle-bags, or rather 
sacks — I felt to my father for having taught me 
as a child to ride without stirrup or crutch on 
a pack-saddle ; but for that I might now have 
been lying a shapeless mass of broken bones at 
the foot of one of the Pyrenees. We ascended 
slowly, my guide on foot, a desolate barren 
region belonging to Andorre, but rented by the 
inhabitants of the Hospitalet. Seven hundred 
head of cattle were pasturing here under the 
care of a few shepherds. They were of the 
grey, thick-necked, buffalo-looking breed, and 
it was really a grand sight to see such a herd 
on the mountain-side ; not so pleasant, how- 



ANDORRE. 



81 



ever, when they threatened Keeper with their 
horns, and my guide told me they often killed 
any dog that passed. The cows are not milked 
when taken to the mountain-pastures ; the shep- 
herds take what they choose for their own use, 
the calves have the rest. No butter, and little 
cheese, is made here, or in Andorre ; and with 
all these cows, the inhabitants habitually drink 
goats' milk. In the southern Pyrenees, on the 
contrary, the peasants live during the summer 
in chalets near the mountain-pastures. The 
cows are regularly milked, and their produce, 
either as butter, cheese, or milk, brought every 
morning to market. But the patriarchs did not 
live a more primitive comfortless life, than do 
the Ariegois, and the Andorrans. My guide 
pointed out a ruined metairie belonging to his 
uncle and himself, where a few years ago they 
lost sixty or seventy head of cattle and horses, 
as well as the poor old shepherd who had 
charge of them. All were killed by the falling 
of the stables in a mountain-storm. After w^e 
had nearly passed these herds, my guide, who 
had joined company with two other men carry- 
ing loads on horses to Soldau, coolly told me he 
'was going to ford the Ariege, and take a 

Gt 



82 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

shorter cut up the hill. I might go on alone, 
my horse would follow the others, and I could 
cross where they did.' I did not like it, especi- 
ally as some of the bulls still menaced Keeper; 
but there seemed no help, for he suited the 
action to the words, and in a moment was far be- 
yond screaming distance ; so I rode on. The ford 
was of course not very deep, but the Ariege 
always brawls over huge stones, so that there is 
always a considerable eddy or current. The 
two other pack-horses crossed alone without 
their leaders, who had gone on with Tatine ; 
mine would not, but stood stock-still ; while 
Keeper, seeing I was in trouble, and anxious to 
do his best to help me, commenced a war- 
dance, accompanied by quick angry barks, 
meant to encourage me and my horse, but 
likely enough to bring down on him and me 
the thirty or forty cattle grazing on the rnll 
above in threatening attitude. My guide came 
to the other side and shouted to me to come 
on ; but in vain I plied Mrs. Gamp ; that 
wretched horse would not face the current for 
more than a quarter of an hour. At last he 
slowly wetted his feet, and next, cheered by 
the sight of the other horses going up the hill, 



ANDORRE. 



S3 



or dreading his master's stick, lie leisurely 
crossed. JSTot an apology did that homme de 
conjiance, Jerome Eoan, make ; he was only 
angry I could not force the 6 sacree bete' to 
cross sooner. It was no use scolding or argu- 
ing. I said nothing ; but I thought inwardly, it 
will be well if I reach Andorre without an 
accident. 

After this, the road grew every moment 
more interesting. Peak after peak rose up in 
front, some yet white in many parts with snow ; 
and the morning sun threw deep blue shadows 
on the clefts and hollows of the mountains be- 
hind me. It was a grand and glorious sight, 
worth quitting England to see ! Nor was this 
all ; the loveliest flowers covered the hill-sides, 
and I must avow I rather tired Tatine's patience 
by asking him to gather the rare ones ; I only 
asked for those unknown to me before.* Ofi, 
how I wished I could have gathered roots or 
seeds for the gardens of my English friends ! 
One mountain-side was all yellow with a large 
flowered anemone of a pale sulphur hue, deeper 
towards the centre. It had the stem, leaf, leaf- 

* In hiring him, Mdlle. Charlotte had distinctly stated I was 
in search of rare flowers, and he must gather me any I saw. 



84 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

let, corolla, and rounded seed vessel of a true 
anemone, but it is difficult to botanise on horse- 
back, with no book in which to put one's acqui- 
sitions. There a hill-side was snowy white, as 
if it was covered with daisies, But these were 
a small white flower, like a wood anemone in 
size, but with a grey-hued, cistus-like leaf, and 
probably belonged to that class. Then there 
was a small white anemone, whose flower, of a 
dead lily- white also — had deep orange-hued 
stamens like the cistus, but the true anemone 
stem, flower, sheath, and leaf. There were a 
few roots of sweet-scented daphne. The blue 
gentian grew in profusion among the yellow 
anemones, and there was also the lovely small 
gentiana verna, but here of a duller hue, and 
more of a purple than at Bagneres ; and along 
with the smaller and larger pinguicula grew 
the delicate pink labiated flower, with a finely 
pinnulated or serrated leaf, common in our 
bogs,* in rich large whorls of deepest Magenta ; 
crimsoning whole fields, and mountain-sides. 
And what shall I say of the forget-me-not — here 
of the deepest azure hue, there absolutely deep- 
ening into lapis lazuli? What of the small 

* Pedicularis sylvatica. 



ANDORRE. 



85 



meadows full of flowers, gleaming here and 
there among rocks or copses by the side of the 
foaming Ariege,— here — all golden with butter- 
cups, there — a whole bank of forget-me-nots, or 
meadow pinks ; or of lovely white ranunculus, 
growing like a meadow buttercup in size, but 
taller, and with more glossy, larger leaves ; and 
golden stamens, enlivening the pure white calyx? 
In damp situations the bushes of this plant are 
often two feet high. I saw also a few asphodels, 
globe flowers, the teazel-like plant I found at 
•St. Sauveur, here nearly white, and no longer 
pretty; and the silvery everlasting -like flower 
I never saw before I came to Ax, and which 
there the rain prevented my obtaining.* 

We stopped, that the men might dine and the 
horses feed, at the little village of Soldau, a 
dirty nest of some half-dozen stone cabins, in the 
midst of a narrow valley of rich meadows, a little 
after we had passed Le Teint Noir, a small black- 
looking pond where the Ariege has its source, 
and here I had a still further proof of the ego- 
ism of my trusty and much vaunted guide. The 
place was too dirty, and I was too tired and un- 

* These flowers all died long before I reached Andorre, so 
that I could not class them. 



86 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

well to take anything except a small quantity of 
Spanish eau de vie, which is a white milky-look- 
ing fiery liquid, not very palatable. Even Keeper 
disdained the soup offered him, and lay on the 
balcony looking reproachfully at me because I 
did not feed him better after his long mountain 
run. A young man — a lad of seventeen, speak- 
ing Castilian only, of which I knew but little — 
dined there also. Monsieur Eoan coolly pro- 
posed to turn me over to him ; he had a horse, 
and could take me on to Andorre with my 
baggage, while he, Eoan, could return that night 
to the Hospitalet, with of course two days' pay 
for half a day's work. I positively declined. I 
had made an arrangement with him, M. le Cure 
and Mdlle. Charlotte having assured me he 
was trustworthy, and I could not break the 
agreement and intrust myself to a new lad of 
whom I knew nothing. He assured me he 
knew him to be of very respectable Andorran 
family. 4 Possible,' said I ; 6 but the thing can- 
not be.' In fact, had I done so, and had any 
accident befallen me, M. le Cure and Mdlle. 
Charlotte, who had taken much trouble to 
secure me a good guide, as far as they knew, 
would have had just cause to blame me. Jerome 



ANDOREE. 



87 



Eoan did not insist further, and made a merit 
of not doing so, but I soon found he had lost his 
temper. After awhile the new-comer asked me 
if I would ride his horse, which looked young 
and skittish. I declined, and at a little village 
on our road he left us to pay a visit to friends. 
Our two former compagnons de voyage had re- 
mained at Soldau. I now dismounted and 
walked, forgetting, when I did so, to take my 
umbrella from Tatine, who held it while I got 
down, and he walked on with the horse, at its 
pace, obstinately and sulkily refusing to stop 
every now and then, and wait till I could get 
up to him. The mountain road grew very steep, 
slippery, and stair-like ; often it was merely the 
partially dry bed of a mountain torrent, and I 
had carefully to pick my way from huge boul- 
ders to small stones ; now across a stream of 
water whose stepping-stones were just those that 
naturally rose above the surface of the water as 
it lessened in volume through the summer heat ; 
often, nay, generally, rocking about, while I had 
neither alpenstock nor even my beloved ' Mrs. 
Gamp' to aid me in steadying my feet ; and if I 
fell, and seriously hurt myself, my guide was 
beyond call. I need not say it never even 



88 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



occurred to him to give me a hand in any ascent 
or descent, however rough or perilous, except 
once. Once when we had crossed the first moun- 
tain after l'Hospitalet, covered with such beauti- 
ful flowers, we came to a crevasse still full of 
snow. There was a large round hole in the 
middle, and it was curious to see how very 
thin the snow was round its edge, not thicker 
than my finger. Tatine pointed it out to me, 
and gave me his hand to assist me in crossing. 
So far as I could judge by the eye — for with 
such guides one cannot stop to examine into 
anything, however curious or beautiful — the 
whole crevasse was full of snow merely, without 
ice. I met, at the hotel at Ax, a Mr. Eussell, 
a member of the Alpine Club, who had just re- 
turned from an expedition into Anclorre, whither 
he went to make a more correct guide than has 
yet been published of this chain of the Pyrenees, 
and he told me that the day before, descending 
one of the mountains, he slipped and fell into 
one of these deep beds of snow ; luckily he 
escaped without injury. I believe he is the 
second Englishman who has visited Andorre ; the 
Honourable Erskine Murray was the first, and 
for above twenty years had no follower. I, so 



AXDOEEE. 



39 



far as I know, am the first Englishwoman who 
has ever dared to invade the privacy of that 
pocket republic. I recommend no single un- 
protected woman to follow in my track. I 
travel because c'est mon etat, as the French say. 
The public has accorded so kind and favourable 
a reception to 6 A Lady's Walks in the South of 
Prance,' that my publisher, Mr. Bentley, urged 
my taking another similar tour on the Spanish 
side of the Pyrenees. Happy are those women 
who have a home of their own, and can stay in 
it. I had rather have been tying up sweet-peas, 
and training clematis round the porch of my 
wee four-roomed cottage at Hampstead, could I 
have retained it, than have seen all the sights in 
the world ! There is no place like 6 one's ain 
fireside.' As the pretty little Scotch song says, 

Oh ! I hae seen great anes, an' sat in great La's, 
Mid lords and mid ladies, a' covered with braws, 
But the dearest enjoyment my heart ever savr ; 
Although it be humble and narrow and sma', 
Is the bonny bien blink o' my ain fireside 

My ain fireside. 

I am not sure I quote correctly. I used to 
strum that song every night, but I burnt it, I 
believe, the night before I broke up my little 
home. Its music was discord to my heart. 



90 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

A lodging is no home. It is a sort of prison. 
Shut up in one's two rooms, condemned to eat 
day after day the same tasteless, ill-dressed, 
dried-up food — toujours perdrix might be bad 
enough, but toujours mutton-chops — or roast 
meat on Saturday, cold on Sunday, ditto on 
Monday, till in utter despair on Tuesday you 
give it to your dog! And as for boarding- 
houses, no one who has not lived in them, can 
imagine the petty spite, the jealousies, the un- 
provoked calumnies spread about all who are 
in any way superior to the others. One runs 
from them to a lodging to escape ill-nature, 
after trying in vain to oblige everybody in the 
house ; and the want of proper food and con- 
sequent illness, drives one back to those refuges 
for the destitute, till even the inconveniences 
and discomforts of a foreign tour undertaken 
on slender means, with its changes of scene, 
its varied and majestic scenery, and its beautiful 
flowers, seems a desirable alternative. But, ah ! 
one envies the poorest cottager in Yorkshire 
who has her own home and garden, her bed of 
flowers before the door, her garth, and her wee 
haystack, her pig, her chickens, and her cow ! 
I have often seriously thought of turning 



ANDORRE. 



91 



cottager, but the habits of a life are against it. 
I have not strength to live in a brick-floored 
room, with the outer door opening into it. A 
certain amount of comfort is become a necessity 
for me as a condition of tolerable health. A per- 
son liable to violent attacks of bronchitis, with 
no one to nurse her when ill, is obliged to be 
careful of herself. I put these remarks in for 
my reviewers, who have been pleased to wonder 
why I did not content myself with 6 even the 
humblest lodging in a country village in Eng- 
land, instead of wandering in this comfortless 
way.' Gentlemen, I want to earn a home of 
my own once more ; and, thank God, and a kind 
public, which buys and reads my books, I hope 
I am in a fair way now to do so. 

Basta ! Retournons a nos moutons. About a 
mile and a half from the village of Encamps, I 
was painfully picking my way down a steep 
mountain-side alone — Tatine and the horse 
were of course out of sight and call — when I 
passed two shepherd boys. I saluted them ; they 
replied with smiles, and I thought, 4 if these are 
a sample of Andorrans they are a fine handsome 
race.' I had scarcely passed them when an ass 
came galloping down the mountain, and attacked 



92 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

Keeper, who, tired with his long run, instead 
of showing fight as usual, jumped over a wall 
into a field, to avoid her ; she then galloped 
up to me, and turning, commenced kicking. I 
managed to frighten her off, and calling Keeper, 
retreated to a thick box-hedge growing against 
the mountain-side, intending to pass her that 
way. I had scarcely done so, when I was 
stunned by a most violent blow on the top of 
the head from something falling: through the 
box-hedge above me. I felt sick and faint, 
and putting my hand to my neck, down which 
something was trickling, found my fingers 
covered with blood, and the large stone which 
had struck me, weighing at least three pounds, 
lay at my feet. My first impression was that 
it was an eclat de rocher, but a loud triumphant 
laugh at their successful aim, from the young 
Andorrans, soon undeceived me, and showing 
my bloody fingers, I exclaimed, 6 Vous m'avez 
tueV Upon which they ran away as hard 
as they could. No guide was in sight, and 
I felt growing fainter and dizzier every mo- 
ment. How was I to make Tatine hear — I, 
who, just recovering from a severe attack of 
bronchitis, had not yet recovered my voice ? I 



AND0RRE. 



93 



could not articulate any word ; I could only 
scream, 4 Ai ! ai ! ' in the hope he might hear. 
I screamed at intervals for at least a quarter 
of an hour ; when at last, finding, I suppose, 
that I did not follow, he left the horse, and 
came to seek me, but when he saw me, it was 
some minutes before he would come to me. 
He shouted to me to 4 come on to him, the 
ass would not hurt me,' &c, &c. At last, 
seeing I did not stir, he came nearer, and 
heard me faintly articulate, 6 lis m'ont tue7 
4 Qu'est-ce que c'est done ? ' I held up my 
bloody hands, and told my tale. He was for 
leaving me there fainting, and pursuing the 
young savages, and it was all I could do to 
persuade him I was not fit to be left. Then 
it was, 4 Les vilains diables ! Who would 
have thought it ? who could have dreamed of 
such a thing happening ? If he could only 
catch the villains ! ' 4 1 did not expect this, 
certainly,' said I slowly and feebly, 'but I 
predicted that some misfortune would hap- 
pen to me before I reached Andorre if you 
persisted in leaving me. I expected I should 
fall and perhaps break a limb in descend- 
ing some of these difficult paths; and if I 



9-1 



OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIX. 



had, you were not there to help rne. A 
guide's first duty is never to lose sight of his 
traveller. You knew I was not a mountaineer, 
accustomed to mountains ; and you promised M. 
le Cure, and Mdlle. Charlotte Sicre, to take good 
care of me.' 

He wanted me to mount and ride the rest of 
the way to Encamps, but I was far too dizzy and 
faint to be able to sit the horse along such roads, 
if roads they can be called. In these Pyrenees, 
the roads appear to me to make themselves. 
They are generally clown or up a mountain-side, 
the dry or partially dry bed of a torrent. Where 
they wind around a precipitous mountain, they 
appear to have been originally goat tracks, 
widened perhaps a little by man. All the way 
to Encamps was a steep descent, and ill as I was, 
I was obliged to walk. My head was exces- 
sively painful, the cold wind cut through it like 
a knife, and I dreaded that part of the brain 
might be exposed, from the intense pain I suf- 
fered. Tatine was in a rage because the acci- 
dent had happened through his negligence, and 
because I could not sit the horse ; and I had 
nothing with me to relieve the feeling of faint- 
ness — not a drop of wine or brandy, or a smel- 



AXDORRE. 



95 



ling bottle — even water was unattainable for that 
last weary mile and a half. At last we reached 
Encamps. I had letters for a wealthy Andorran 
there, but there was some difficulty in finding 
him. His son had naturally addressed him by 
his right name, and as is usual in Ariege and 
Andorre, he was known only by his sobriquet. 
At last we found his house, and I presented my 
letters, and received from him and his wife every 
possible kindness, though they must have thought 
me somewhat of a bear, for I was too faint to 
talk. They wanted to wash my wound with 
salt, or wine, or brandy ; but I knew my flesh 
always healed well if let alone, and bound it up 
in the warm blood, shook my head, exclaimed 
' No ! no ! ' and refused to have it touched. I 
bathed my hands and face with water, and 
when a little revived by that, and drinking two 
or three tumblers of cold water, instead of the 
wine and syrop de groseille kindly offered me, 
got a thick Indian silk handkerchief I happened 
to have out of my bag, and tied it over my 
head under my hat, and as the blood dried over 
the cuts, and the handkerchief protected them 
from the cold air, they began to feel less pain- 
ful. My host was much annoyed that such a 



9(3 



OYER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



misfortune should have happened to me, and 
vowed he would have the lads severely punished. 
I described them to him, and so did Tatine, but 
it is not the custom to punish any crime short 
of murder in Andorre, and then only under very 
aggravated circumstances ; and I dare say they 
escaped. However, Don Antonio Maestro was 
clearly much ashamed that so uncourteous a re- 
ception should have been given to an unoffend- 
ing stranger, who had, moreover, brought him 
letters from his boy, and his boy's schoolmaster, 
and did all he could to atone for it. He and his 
wife pressed me to lie down, and to remain that 
night at Encamps, but I was bent on getting to 
Andorre. I thought the sooner my journey 
was ended the better, and if I grew worse I 
should at least be in an inn. Don Antonio 
accompanied me to the blacksmith's where the 
horse had been left to be shod, some of its shoes 
having come off with the rough road, and 
helped me on to it. I was less faint now, after 
an hour's repose, and both he and Tatine 
assured me there were no more precipitous de- 
scents, so I remounted, and we started again. Ill 
as I was — for though the acute pain of the cut 
had ceased, the headache left by the violence 



ANDORRE. 



97 



of the blow remained — I could not help ad- 
miring the savage grandeur of the passes through 
which we reached Andorre, and the magnificent 
views from Escaldos, the last village before 
Anclorre. Here we again stopped to have a 
shoe put on the horse, and were overtaken by the 
young Andorran we had met in the morning, and 
whom the faithless Tatine had proposed to me 
as a guide ; who stopped at the forge for the same 
purpose. He also had been 6 cobbled ' by the 
same shepherd boys, but had jumped down from 
his horse, and ran after and thrashed them. He 
could not forbear a significant smile when he 
heard of my misfortune. It said plainer than 
words, ' I should have taken as good care of 
you as the guide you have.' True enough ; but 
if my head had got broken under his care, the 
Cure and Mdlle. Charlotte would have said it was 
my own fault. Now it was Tatine's. The fresh 
air and the rich aromatic scent of the box-trees 
somewhat revived me, and I was able to admire 
and even enjoy the lovely and magnificent views 
opening before me. Fancy, to the left, a rich 
well- wooded valley, watered by a clear winding 
stream, walled in by grand and majestic moun- 
tains, varying each from the other in outline, 

H 



98 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

with deep shadows thrown on them by the 
fading light, retiring, as it were, one behind the 
other, till the imagination failed in fancying their 
number ; and in front, a narrow gorge or defile 
leading to the valley, with an old, broken, high, 
one-arched bridge, almost covered with ivy and 
creepers, spanning a chasm, below which ran the 
river. Above the bridge, the rocks fantastically 
clothed with creepers, fringed with graceful 
trees, rise more abrupt and precipitous, while 
the river pours down a foaming cascade between 
them, and a large blue mountain rises like a wall 
between you and the sky. We traversed the 
bridge, wound round a steep ledge of rocks, 
only fit for goats, and having on each side 
gardens and houses, the gates of the first often 
thickly covered with a large single-clustered 
white rose, which drooped in rich masses to the 
ground — entered a dirty ladder-like street, and 
behold, we were in Andorre la Vieja, or the 
' old Andorre.' Here also I had letters to de- 
liver ; and as Don Antonio had told me very 
significantly that I had better consult his cousin 
before fixing myself at an hotel, I refused to 
accompany my guide to the inn, and made him 
take me to Don Pedro Moles. Alas ! Don Pedro 



AXDORRE. 



99 



was at his metairie, a mile off; so also was 
Senor Babot, whose real name was Don Bona- 
venture Moles. They had to be sent for, and I 
was asked to sit down in a large room, hung 
round with, apparently, family portraits ; for I was 
in the house of the richest proprietor of Andorre. 
The rest of the furniture was of the simplest 
description; rows of high-backed rush-seated 
chairs, with the frames painted lapis lazuli blue, 
and two large deal tables, I think, completed it. 
The window, which was large, but with small 
panes of glass, opened on to a balcony, and looked 
out into the main street of Andorre. I could 
not speak Spanish, and no one there, except 
Tatine, who spoke both French and Castilian, 
could understand me ; but they brought me two 
little bits of chocolate on a plate — the usual re- 
freshment offered, apparently — which I refused, 
and cold water, which I drank greedily. Now I 
was out of the fresh air, the feeling of deadly 
sickness returned, and I was afraid of fainting 
outright before Senor Moles should arrive and 
recommend me to an inn. By-and-by, the 
daughter of the house came and asked me to go 
in to 'Maman' — the only French word she 
seemed to know. I followed to an inner room, 

B 2 



100 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

and, to my horror, found I was intruding on an 
invalid ; Madame Moles was in bed. More- 
over, there was a huge bunch of white lilies in 
water in a jug on a side-table, and I turned so 
deadly faint that, exclaiming, ' Perdona, sono 
malato,' I rushed from the room to the balcony 
in the outer room, where stood Tatine, grum- 
bling at being kept waiting so long; and sent him 
to apologise for my apparent rudeness. At last 
the two Andorrans came, and they also seemed 
much pained for the honour of their country, that 
I should have been so shamefully abused. Don 
Pedro could not speak anything but Castilian. 
Senor Babot, his brother-in-law, spoke French, 
and accompanied me to an hotel, but my per- 
fidious guide had requested him, in Castilian, to 
take me to the one where he had chosen to put 
up his horse. We went there accordingly. What 
a place it was ! We entered a paved court-yard 
or passage leading to the stables, and beyond 
this came to a large kitchen, where, around the 
wood fire which burned on the hearth in a wide 
open chimney nearly the width of the room ; 
some ten or a dozen bronzed-visaged, swarthy, 
dark-eyed men, in knee breeches, and plush waist- 
coats, and with sashes round their waists, were 



AKDORRE. 



101 



lying grouped in a most picturesque manner. It 
was quite a scene for an artist — indeed, a tour in 
this wild country would be a mine of wealth for a 
painter — but it was anything but a pleasant place 
for an 6 unprotected female,' with a broken head, 
to repose herself in. At the other end of the 
apartment, round a long deal table, as wild, 
ragged, and barefooted, or espardined, if I 
may coin a word (espardines are hempen-soled 
sandals, worn by the Andorrans and Spaniards 
of the lower class), a set were sitting devouring 
their supper, and all were shouting, gesticulating, 
and talking, as none but Pyreneans and Spaniards 
can shout and gesticulate. It was a Babel. 6 Had 
the host a comfortable bedroom ? ' Seiior Babot 
asked. c Yes, he had as comfortable a room as 
heart could wish.' ' Was it ready? ' I wearily 
asked, for I longed to lay my aching head on a 
pillow. ' No, it was not ready, but it could be 
got ready directly ; it was a charming room ; 
Madame would be comfortable.' Eooms never 
are ready in Andorre, or Spain, except at the 
great hotels. They remain as their last occu- 
pant leaves them, till another arrives to take his 
place. We stumbled all three, led by the host, 
up a dark staircase encumbered by sacks of 



102 



OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



flour apparently, on to a landing encumbered 
with more sacks, and straw, and other lumber ; 
and throwing open the door of a small, close, 
suffocating, hot room, whose window had never 
been opened that day, whose bed bore evident 
traces of late occupancy, as did the room itself, 
the host again declared his conviction that when 
it was put in order I should be 'bien dans 
la chambre — absolument comme chez moi. ' 
£ Absolument comme chez vous,' echoed Tatine. 
At home, indeed, in that filthy room, whose very 
odour told of innumerable bugs. £ Je ne dormirai 
pas ici,' said I, descending. 6 Senor Moles, let us 
try the other hotel.' We went back to what 
I suppose I must call the £ place ' or square of 
Andorre ; and going through the same sort of 
court-yard paved with cobbles and leading to 
stables, ascended a large stone staircase — all the 
staircases here are stone apparently — we were 
led through a lame room where a throng of 
Andorran peasants were supping, shouting, and 
smoking ; into a large room divided into two un- 
equal halves, by an arched and curtained recess 
which formed an inner room ; receiving no light 
except from the archway, and from two large 
ovals about half a yard long pierced in the wall 



AJS T DORRE. 



103 



on each side the arch. This inner room was to 
be my bedroom ; the outer opening on to a 
balcony, my salon. Of course the bed was un- 
made and everything in disorder; but still it 
was all so far superior to the other inn, that 
even Tatine had nothing to say when I declared 
I preferred this hotel to the other. He slunk 
sulkily off, and as soon as he was gone, Senor 
Babot said, ' I could not bring you here before, 
for your guide told me you had already put up 
at the other house ; the horse was there already ; 
and besides, the owner of this hotel is my cousin. 
So it would not do to force you to come here.* 
He recommended me to the care of the hostess, 
and then left me. The poor little woman could 
not speak a word of French, but she had a wil- 
ling heart, and her eagerness to serve and please, 
helped her to comprehend my wants. I got 
water and bathed my face and hands ; and coffee, 
but, alas ! with goats' milk ; and I was thus re- 
freshing myself with cafe noir and dry bread 
when my two Andorran friends returned to see 
whether I was made comfortable, and help me 
(Senor Babot at least) to explain what I desired. 
Finding I could not drink goats' milk, whose 
very scent is enough to sicken one, Senor Babot 



104 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

promised that I should have cows' milk next 
morning, and while I stayed, and so I had. With 
all the avaricious propensities of these peasants, 
how much they waste ! With seven hundred 
head of cattle grazing on the mountains, not a 
drop of milk or a bit of butter is to be had at 
L'Hospitalet. It is not on account of the heat, 
for the thermometer which Dr. Scholneld of 
Doncaster kindly gave me as a useful travelling 
companion, never indicated more than 70 or 75 
degrees of Farenheit ; and in LesHautes Pyrenees, 
where the heat is far greater, one can always 
have both butter and milk in profusion, though 
there also they keep goats. Again, just before 
entering Escualdos. or Escaldos, for it seems spelt 
both ways, I saw on a hill-side more bee-hives 
than I ever saw collected together in my whole 
life before. The hives were of the rudest de- 
scription ; about a yard or a yard and a half of 
the stem of a tree with the bark left on, fixed 
in the ground, and hollowed out in the middle. 
How they get the honey out is a mystery to me, 
and I leave it for some braver and more ad- 
venturous traveller — in a word, for some man — 
to solve. Most of these hives were swarming, 
but there was no one to collect the swarms. As 



AJNDORRE. 



105 



in the Hautes Pyrenees, the peasant will any 
time lose pounds, in futuro, rather than spend a 
penny at the moment. To have paid some one 
to hive all these swarms would have ruined the 
rich bee proprietor. They all, Senor Babot in- 
formed me, belonged to one man. 

Tatine now came to be paid, and I was very 
glad of the company of the two Moles, while I 
settled with him. After giving him the fourteen 
francs agreed upon, he had the assurance to ask 
me to recommend him as a good guide in my 
book. 6 Certainly not,' said I. 6 It is no thanks 
to you that I was not killed. You undertook to 
take good care of me, and you walked on with 
the horse, quite out of sight and hearing too. I 
told you to keep with me, which was your duty 
as a guide ; for if I had fallen down those steep 
mountain precipices and broken a limb, who 
was there to help me ? Had you been beside 
me to protect me as you ought to have been, 
those Andorran boys would never have flung 
stones at me. You are not fit for a guide/ 
6 Assez, assez,' said he, sulkily, and away he went. 
£ It seems to me,' said Senor Babot, 6 that you 
are more angry with Tatine than with the boys 
who hurt you.' ' Certainly,' answered I ; 4 for 



106 



OYER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



it was his fault they assaulted me. They dared 
not have attacked me had a powerful man like 
Tatine been by my side. They pelted the 
doctor's son, also, who is only a youth ; but they 
never threw a stone at Tatine.' 

It was late when my two friendly Andorrans 
(for whom I had brought letters from their sons 
at school at Foix) left me, and I was thankful 
at last to lay down my weary head. 



107 



CHAPTEE IV. 



ANDORRE. 



Alas ! I have had a wretched night ; bugs and 
fleas forbade sleep ; and I could only lie on one 
side, and not on my back, as I usually do, on 
account of iny bruised head, so that I could not 
obtain relief by change of position. Keeper 
also was discontented and unhappy. Poor little 
dog ! After that long run, on his legs from 
half-past four a.m. until nine at night, he had 
had no dinner ; for at the inn where we had 
stopped to bait, nothing was to be had but 
cabbage soup, kitchened with grease, and bread 
soaked in it, which he would not eat ; and here 
there was no meat to be had either ; the butcher 
only comes to Andorre twice a week. So, poor 
wretch, he had had nothing but a little dry 
bread and water. Then the floor swarmed with 
fleas, and he groaned and rattled his chain (I 



108 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

had chained him to the table-leg to prevent his 
wandering about and breaking something) in a 
most eerie and ghost-like manner. Altogether 
we had both a wretched night, and ill-rested, 
I got up early next morning in self-defence. 
Senor Babot came, and the hostess was charged 
that day to procure some meat for Keeper, but 
the butcher from San Julian forgot to come, and 
poor Keeper had to eat bread soaked in goats' 
milk. The butcher often forgets to come to 
Andorre it seems, for the people live chiefly 
on hogs' flesh, and do not patronise him exten- 
sively. Only to see those lean, scrofulous, 
measly-looking pigs, is enough to make one for- 
swear pork for ever. I don't wonder God for- 
bade pork to the Jews. It must be a most 
unhealthy diet in hot climates. I saw one pig 
in Andorre which was a mass of sores. I dare 
say he will be killed and eaten when his time 
comes, notwithstanding. I had nothing to eat 
all the time I stayed in Andorre, but bad coffee, 
excellent chocolate, hard-boiled eggs, and dry 
bread. It was no use trying an omelette, made, 
like the one I tried to eat in vain at the Hospi- 
talet, with rancid grease. I talk of eating 
chocolate because the Andorrans and the Spani- 



ANDOKRE. 



109 



ards do eat chocolate. It is made in little cups, 
shaped like our old-fashioned mug-shaped coffee- 
cups, but not holding more than an egg-cup. 
One square, when boiled, fills a cup, and it is 
eaten by dipping a sponge-cake or a piece of 
bread in it, and tastes like a rich cream. I 
should like it very much now and then for 
luncheon or dinner, but for breakfast or tea, one 
wants something to drink. I used to have a 
glass of water brought me, and dilute it till it 
was drinkable, to the great amazement of my 
kind little hostess, who used to come into my 
room, smooth my hair, or stroke my arm, or my 
cheek, and try very hard to make me under- 
stand Castilian, often saying, 4 Povera Senora ! 
non mingia. Diviene magra,' holding up her 
forefinger, 4 magra, come qua.'* Then I used to 
laugh, and say, 4 No, no, magra come qua,' 
holding up in my turn my little finger. She and 
her husband were both kind-hearted, good sort 
of people, and did their best, while I stayed, to 

* ' Poor Senora! she does not eat ; she will become thin — thin 
as that.' Mingia is not a true Castilian word — they would say 
comida; but I believe, though I was told to the contrary, that 
the Andorrans speak a patois kind of Spanish, more akin to 
Catalan, which province is nearest them, than to the Castilian 
or pure Spanish dialect. 



110 



OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



make me as comfortable as possible under the 
circumstances. The husband had lived in Foix, 
and had some notion of the requirements of 
civilised life, and knew how much I must 
miss — and I, on my side, endeavoured, like 
Mark Tapley, to feel jolly, and make light of 
their loss. 

I was determined, however, to try at all 
events for a quieter night ; so I set to work to 
sweep out my own room thoroughly, going into 
all the corners, when my poor hostess fancied it 
already well swept. What a shovelful of dust 
there would have been, had there been a dust 
shovel to put it in! There was none, so I swept 
it into the eating-room or salle-a-manger, and 
then my host and hostess' only son, a lad of 
fifteen, who had looked on with wondering eyes 
at the dama Inglese sweeping ; began in his 
turn to raise the dust with such vehemence, in 
his desire to show me Andorrans could sweep 
as well as English people, that I was fain to 
close the folding doors and shut him out ; but 
I heard him for half an hour after, at least, 
while I was sprinkling my room floor all over 
with water, and scouring my eating-table, which 
had never certainly been scoured before, with 



AND0EEE. 



Ill 



English soap, and water ; niy landlady all the 
while looking on in amazement, and at last 
making me understand, by way of excuse for its 
dirt, that it had been 4 depinta,' painted the 
favourite lapis lazuli blue, of which some few 
streaks still remained. In the filthy little inns 
between the Hospitalet and Andorre, I noticed 
the beams of the ceilings, and the outer frame 
round cupboards, were thus decorated. It is 
equally customary in way-side ventas in Spain.* 
Fortunately for me, a French schoolmaster, 
sent by Government to learn Castilian or patois, 
was lodging also in the inn. He civilly became 
my medium for making my wants known, and 
was also obliging in accompanying me in the 
only two country walks I took while in Andorre. 
I wished to see the church, about a stone's-throw 
from my fonda, or inn, and thought I might 
venture so far alone. No such thing ; I soon 
had a crowd of ragamuffin children bellowing 
and screaming after me, and was obliged to re- 
turn to my quarters. The escort of this French- 
man, dirty and shabby as the poor man was, 

* Venta and fonda both signify an inn. But a venta is a 
way-side inn or public-house ; a fonda is an hotel. 
The inn at Andorre, in size, was more of an hotel. 



112 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

was very acceptable to me. He was rather 
well-informed also for his rank, and could read 
Italian, of which he was not a little proud. He 
brought me an odd volume of 'Ahieri,' pour 
passer le temps, as he said. I had other ways 
of passing le temps ; endeavouring to keep my 
room clean, mending my clothes, and writing 
up my journal, which is to me like Sinbad's old 
man of the sea, a load never to be shaken off. 
I always feel I have this horrid book to write 
in a given time, and wonder how I ever shall 
get it written. My Frenchman was moreover 
sensible and conversable, and from him, who 
had been some months at Andorre, I learnt 
more of the character and manners of the in- 
habitants than I could otherwise have done in 
a year. But even with him, who was known 
throughout the valley, walking out was a dan- 
gerous thing for a lady, dressed of course diffe- 
rently to an Andorran peasant, to do. And had 
I even bought a peasant's dress, I should have 
been known as a stranger, for every face and 
figure is known throughout the valley. Nor is 
there any costume belonging to Andorre. The 
women wear a common print or woollen gown, 
with or without an apron, a dirty handkerchief 



ANDORRE. 



113 



folded over the bosom, and a cleaner one doubled 
in two across the head, with two ends tied loosely 
under the chin, and two hanging down loosely 
over the back of the neck. A more unbecom- 
ing costume than this, common from Bordeaux 
to the Hautes- Pyrenees, in the Ariege, An- 
dorre, and throughout Catalan, Lerida, and in 
Barcelona, can hardly be devised. I had nothing 
at all peculiar but my large napping Leghorn 
hat, which I needed as a shade from the sun ; 
and had I had a bonnet, a pork-pie or a small 
round hat, it would have been as novel to the 
people, and as peculiar. It was natural the people 
should stare at me ; but there are, however, 
two ways of doing everything — a civil and an 
uncivil way ; the Andorran and the Spanish 
way is the uncivil one. 

The Frenchman took me one day to see the 
hot springs of Escaldos. As we were annoyed 
by a crowd of children who followed us, hooting, 
while their relatives rather encouraged them 
than otherwise, we clambered down an Andor- 
ran short cut, over some rocks, rather more like 
the steep roof of a house than a road, to the 
quiet and pleasant fields through which flowed 
the clear winding river. Andorre is, as Ford 

I 



114 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



truly says, 4 a Paradise inhabited by devils/ 
I noticed to the right an immense quantity of 
broken rocks, that seemed to indicate the recent 
fall of a part of the mountain. We went there, 
and my guide told me the sad tale. A small 
hamlet of six or seven houses stood there this 
very spring, some of whose inhabitants were 
among the wealthiest in the valley ; and while we 
stood and looked, a poor old peasant came up, 
and bursting into tears, exclaimed, ' Here was 
my house ! I was rich then ! I saved nothing 
but the clothes I had on, which were my worst. 
Now, I have nothing.' Poor man ! I gave him 
two francs, all I could spare, for I had but 
120 to carry me on to Barcelona. No one 
would change English notes at Ax. 

It seems some shepherds coming down the 
mountain noticed a large crack in the ground, 
and warned the inhabitants of their danger. 
Instead of at once removing their cattle and 
property to Escaldos, only about a quarter of 
a mile, they went to the chapel to pray that 
the misfortune might be averted At last they 
did make up their minds to depart altogether. 
They had only just done so, when an avalanche 
of rocks, stones, and earth, loosened, it was 



ANDORRE. 



115 



supposed, by the gradual sapping of an under- 
ground stream swollen by the melting snows, 
overwhelmed the whole hamlet, burying houses, 
chapel, furniture, stables, and cattle beneath 
it. Nothing escaped destruction but a barn on 
the outskirts of the place ; and so nearly were 
the inhabitants caught by the falling rocks, 
that the last man of the troop was caught by 
a part of the falling mass. The bough of a 
tree, part of which I saw still remaining buried 
in earth, saved him from loss of life or limb ; 
but I was shown the narrow angle where he 
remained imprisoned till people came from Es- 
caldos to cut him out. The Bishop of Urgel, 
their diocesan, sent to the unhappy people a 
hundred francs, but the rest of their rich neigh- 
bours, all of whom, especially the inhabitants 
of Andorre, above which lies a similar bed 
of loose shale, are exposed to similar disasters, 
never aided them in the least. There is no 
fellow-feeling or real charity in Andorre. 

It was Sunday, and as we passed through the 
village of Escaldos a great part of the popula- 
tion were just issuing from the church, and all 
stopped to look and comment on the Inglese. 
That was but natural, but as we drew near the 



116 OYEE THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

rocks whence the hot-springs issue, just above 
the bank of the river, the women and children 
gathered round rne, hooting ; and my guide 
spoke sharply to them, but did not succeed in 
putting a stop to the annoyance ; they still fol- 
lowed us with insulting exclamations as we went 
down the stone steps to examine the springs. 
There are several of different degrees of heat and 
mineral strength. I could bear my hand in all. 
Some Germans sent a medical man to report on 
them, and wished to establish baths, which 
would have been an excellent thing for the 
poor miserable little village ; but the Andorrans 
are averse to any alterations, even for the better. 
They have given up working the iron mines, 
which yielded iron of excellent quality, 'for 
fear,' say they, ' that if we work them, and the 
riches of our mountains are known, either 
France or Spain will annex our territory, and 
we shall lose our independence.' The best 
thing that could befall the Andorrans would be 
to lose this boasted independence. It consists 
only in not progressing with the rest of the 
world ; in being able to remain poor, bigoted, 
ignorant, dirty, lazy, and vicious. Les Andor- 
rans sont mediants is the common saying, 



ANDORRE. 



117 



both of their French and Spanish neighbours. 
There are honourable exceptions, and I am 
bound to say I received much kind attention in 
Andorre, but these individuals formed the ex- 
ception to the general character borne by the 
inhabitants. Therefore, like other good gifts of 
God, the mineral hot-springs of Andorre remain 
useless to every one except that the women 
wash their clothes in them. After examining 
them we turned our steps homeward, the 
women and children still following us with 
cries and execrations for some distance; but 
quickening our pace, we at last succeeded in 
tiring them out, and got away from them. I 
was still weak from my accident, and sat down 
on a broken wall breathless, when my guide said, 

' Have you a knife with you ? ' 

6 Only a penknife.' 

c Bon ! give it me ; I may want it. I spoke 
roughly to those women ; it is possible their 
husbands or lovers may follow and attack me, 
and I am unarmed, while no Andorran goes 
without his gun or dagger, and generally both ; 
and they do not warn you either ; they stab from 
behind. lis sont mechants — les Andorrans.' 

I gave it him, thinking to myself that all 



1J8 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

republics* were dreadful places, from the huge 
one of America to the pocket republic, An- 
dorre. However, no one followed or molested 
us further, and as we walked up the beautiful 
road to the picturesque bridge I spoke of before, 
my guide told me a few traits of the savage 
character of the Andorran peasantry. 

6 It began about the women. Such quarrels 
are always the worst. It is the custom in 
Andorre — for the people are very superstitious 
and bigoted, though their religion does not 
withhold them from crime — to bear annually in 
procession through the valley an image of the 
Virgin, which is much venerated. Now, the 
Andorrans are passionately fond of dancing, 
which is the only amusement the young girls 
have, and the priests interdict it ; but the 
Andorrans say, " Our wives danced, and they 
were virtuous; our daughters shall dance also." 
Above everything an Andorran abhors change 
of manners. The priests, however, persisted, and 

* "Where, except in America or Andorre, do men "beat and 
stab and shoot one another without warning on the slightest 
offence, even for a difference of opinion ; and honourable mem- 
bers knock honourable members down with loaded horsewhips 

in the senate-house, as the Southern member did Mr. in 

full congress ? 



ANDORRE. 



119 



more especially the cure of Escaldos. He insti- 
tuted a society of young girls called chorales, 
or singers, who were pledged never to dance, 
but they might do worse. In fact, these choraux 
were a pepiniere of vice, and the priest chose 
from among them, as his servant, the prettiest 
girl in the whole valley. But the Andorrans 
set their face against these societies ; they would 
not allow their daughters to enter them, and, do 
what he could, the cure of Escaldos only got 
four girls to join the choir. He resolved to 
seize the occasion of the annual procession to 
punish both them and their parents. It was 
the custom that the young girls of Escaldos 
should bear the sacred image to that wall ; 
there they are relieved by the girls of Andorre, 
who bear it a certain distance, when the girls 
of St. Columba, the next village, relieve them, 
and so on ; but the cure declared that no 
Andorran girl should bear the sacred image. 
The Andorrans were highly indignant; the 
most influential represented to him the danger 
and scandal of such a proceeding, but he was 
inflexible. He wrote to the Bishop of Urgel, it 
is said, but without truly stating facts, and then 
he proceeded to forbid the Andorrans the 



120 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

church, because they persisted contrary to his 
decree in allowing their young people to dance. 
He was warned of the consequences again and 
again, but he was obstinate. Do you see that 
field, Mademoiselle ? Eight Andorrans lay 
among the corn there, with loaded guns ready 
to fire, if the Andorran girls were prevented 
taking their part in the ceremony of the day. 
The Andorran girls, therefore, bore the image 
into Andorre, but when they reached the church 
the priest forbade any Andorran to enter it. 
They were prepared for this also. At every 
window stood the master of the house with 
his loaded gun. The priest and the Escaldans 
entered the church and proceeded with the 
ceremony, but when they wished to come out, 
they became aware of the guns aimed at them 
from every house. The priest was a coward. 
He called his vicar,* and bade him head the 
procession. " Coward ! " said an Andorran, 
drawing his knife, " if he falls, this for thy 
heart ! " The vicar went out. " Let him go ! 
let him go ! " shouted the Andorran ; " he has 
done nothing ; it is the cure we want." The 

* Vicaire, in France, is an inferior grade to .that of the cure, 
who is the parish priest. 



AKDORRE. 121 

cure dared not go, and the procession was at 
an end. When night came, he slunk away — the 
Andorrans did not want his life ; they had 
avenged the insult offered to their daughters 
and sweethearts ; he escaped to St. Columba — 
he dared not return to Escaldos — and thence to 
France, but he dared never show himself in the 
valley again.' 

Mr. Erskine Murray, in his interesting work 
on the Pyrenees, lauds the pure manners of the 
peasants of Andorre ; had he lived some months 
among them, like M. Poete, he would have 
learnt that they are by no means the highly 
moral people he supposed. 

6 The women are slaves. They have no voice 
in disposing of themselves, but are given in 
marriage by their family, like the French girls ; 
but without being, like the French girls, edu- 
cated in the seclusion of a convent, and thus 
kept free from attachments. All the Andorrans 
are landed proprietors, some owning more, 
others less land, but there are no gentry.' 4 The 
wealth of an Andorran,' says Mr. Murray, 
c consists in sheep, cattle, or a share in a forge. 
Most have nothing beyond the garden round 
their cabin. Each family acknowledges a chief, 



122 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

succeeding by primogeniture, who chooses a 
wife of his own rank. Fortune is not heeded ; 
mesalliance is. The eldest sons have a certain 
consideration, even during their fathers' lives. 
They never leave home till they marry. If 
they marry an heiress they join her name to 
theirs, and unless married, are not admitted to 
a charge in public affairs. When there are 
only daughters, the eldest succeeds as an eldest 
son, and is always married to a cadet of another 
family, who takes her name, and is domiciled 
in her family; and by this arrangement the 
principal Andorran families continue for cen- 
turies in the same position as regards fortune/ 

4 The women are wretched here/ said my 
French guide to me. ' They are mere slaves. 
" My sister was passionately attached to a 
young man/' said an Andorran to me, " and 
he to her ; they adored one another. A stranger 
came and asked her of my father in marriage, 
and he consented. Since then my sister has 
never had a day's health." 

6 " And did she make no objection ? " said I. 

' " Poor thing ! Elle s'en garda bien. She 
was a victim, and submitted of course; they 
always do, but it does not answer ; terrible 



ANDOERE. 



123 



things sometimes happen. I will tell you one 
— a tragedy which happened in Andorre only a 
year or two ago. A mason married a young 
woman, and they had two or three children, 
but after a time the husband began to suspect 
all was not right, and he watched. He reached 
home at an unexpected hour one day, and 
found a villager with his wife. For his chil- 
dren's sake, perhaps from some lingering love 
for his faithless spouse, he resolved to avoid 
a public scandal, and he removed with his 
family to Barcelona, where his trade enabled 
him to obtain work. But before they had been 
long there, the woman wrote to the young man, 
who had up to that time borne an irreproach- 
able character, asking him to follow, and pro- 
posing that they should elope together from 
that town. The lover was eager to do so, but 
money was necessary, and he had no money. 
He went one evening, armed with his gun — an 
Andorran peasant, as you may have noticed, 
always carries arms, so that it excited no sur- 
prise — to the cottage of a wealthy proprietor, 
and said to him and his wife, c Your daughter 
has had a terrible misfortune ; she has fallen 
down a precipice. I am come to fetch you.' 



124 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

' " The poor unsuspecting parents followed 
him in haste. They reached a lonely hill-side, 
and then the young man turned sternly, and 
said, 6 A terre ! a terre ! ' 

c " The terrified peasant obeyed, and he 
bound him first, and proceeded to rifle him; 
but while he robbed the man, the woman made 
off to summon aid. Perceiving this, he left the 
husband firmly bound, as he thought, and run- 
ning after the woman overtook and murdered 
her. The husband, meanwhile, had got free 
from his bonds, and came to his wife's assist- 
ance ; him too he murdered, and with the booty 
he obtained he set off to Barcelona, fetched the 
woman, for whom he had committed the crime, 
and returned with her to Andorre." 

6 " And was he permitted to remain quietly 
here?" 

c " No ; the principal Andorrans joined to- 
gether to arrest him. He led a miserable life 
for days among the mountains, hunted like a 
wild beast, and at night he slept in a barn near 
Escaldos ; but he was well armed, and he had 
vowed to shoot the first man who should lay 
hands upon him, so they were afraid to take 
him. At last one man advanced to seize him ; 



ANDORRE. 



125 



he shot him dead, and he was the father of 
seven children, and belonged to one of the first 
families in Andorre. Then, the Andorrans drew 
a circle round the mountain-side where he lay 
hid; he wanted food, and he tried to break 
through one night, and fell down a precipice 
and broke his leg." 

6 " Then they took him, of course ? " 

4 " No ; they said, lying there three days and 
nights — he was there three days and nights ; 
because, you see, he had tried to go down the 
other side of the mountain, which was not 
guarded, to get food at night, and so fell where 
no one was within call, until at last some shep- 
herds heard his dreadful groans, and they went 
to the bottom of the ravine and found him 
nearly dead, and carried him to the village. 
And the Andorrans said God had punished him 
enough by the breaking of his leg, and those 
three days and nights of pain, so they let him 
go free. All the punishment inflicted on him 
was banishment from Andorre." 

6 " Is not murder, then, punished by death ? " 

6 " They say so, but it is not true. I could 
point out to you any day in the street men who 
are known to have committed two or three 



126 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



murders. If it is a very bad case, if there has 
been no precedent of such a crime for a hun- 
dred and fifty years, death is adjudged. But, 
as I told you, assassination is frequent in An- 
dorre. A quarrel arises, and at the first oppor- 
tunity one comes slyly behind his neighbour 
and stabs him, or shoots him. Andorran 
revenge is never open. The assassin escapes 
to France or Spain for awhile, and then he 
comes back ; no one takes any notice. A few 
years ago an Andorran was condemned to 
death. The executioner had to be sent for 
from France — there are no executioners here. 
The crime was a dreadful murder, and none 
such had been committed for a hundred and 
fifty years. The criminal was sentenced to 
death, and the scaffold was erected, but at the 
moment the sentence should have been exe- 
cuted, the Bishop of Urgel sent him a reprieve ; 
he is living now." ' 

6 What a horrible state of things ! What a 
savage set of people ! ' 

6 Yes, savage enough. You should see their 
gaol. There are two criminals there now, await- 
ing their trial ; one is for attempted assassination 
of a sister. The parents and relatives in a family 



ANDOKRE. 



127 



gave almost all the property to a sister, exclud- 
ing, so far as they could, the brother from all 
share. After awhile, he proposed to his sister 
that he, his wife, and children should go and 
live with her, and aid her to cultivate her farm. 
Knowing his violent character, the sister refused. 
One day, soon afterwards, she went up into the 
mountain to collect firewood. She never re- 
turned. After the lapse of a day or two, the 
neighbours who had seen her go became uneasy, 
and went to seek her. They found her at the 
bottom of a ravine, dreadfully bruised and in- 
jured, and only just alive. They carried her 
home and took care of her, and she is living 
yet, though it is some months since ; but she 
obstinately preserves silence as to how she fell 
down the chasm. The torn bushes, the foot- 
steps on the brink, the fragments of clothes on 
the briers, all tell of a terrible struggle. Every 
one is sure her brother met her, dragged her to 
the brink of the precipice, and forced her down, 
but she will not accuse him. He is now in the 
gaol in Andorre, and if his sister dies, will pro- 
bably be put to death, for public feeling is 
very strong against him, and she is sure to die. 
She has never left her bed since her accident. 



128 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

She cannot, by all accounts, survive much 
longer.' 

6 The sister behaved nobly in not telling/ 
' Yes, for there is no doubt as to the brother's 
guilt.' 

6 I thought that in France, and here, the law 
guarded against parental injustice. It ought, 
for parents and relatives are often frightfully 
unjust and capricious ; and even where injustice 
does not cause terrible crime, it always causes 
alienation between the members of a family.' 

6 This is the French law. A man can dispose 
of the fourth part of .his estate or goods. If he 
chooses he can give one-fourth of all he has to 
an entire stranger. If he gives it to a favourite 
child, that child has, first of all, the fourth part 
of all the father has ; afterwards, as one of his 
children, he or she comes in for a share of all 
that is left ; if there are six children, for a sixth 
part ; if two, for half the remaining property.' 

' That seems to me very unjust.' 

' It is the law.' 

4 1 still think it unjust ; except in the case of 
an entailed estate, which then, if so entailed, 
ought to be burdened with a provision for 
female and younger children suitable to their 



ANDOEEE. 



129 



birth. I think the children of one family ought 
to be equally provided for. Where one favourite 
or two favourites get everything, and the others, 
nurtured in equal luxury and having done no- 
thing to merit such exclusion, are left to semi- 
starvation, I hold such treatment to be cruel 
and shameful in the extreme — a sin before God 
and man. Even if a child has done wrong, it 
has still a birthright, an inalienable claim for 
subsistence, according to its birth. If the child 
waste or alienate his heritage, that is his affair ; 
but wherever injustice is committed by the 
parent or near relative, a family breach for life 
is the necessary result.' 

I thought of a family in Ariege, whose his- 
tory had been told me, and who were at bitter 
feud because one child had been made heir to 
a fourth of the parents' fortune for no merit 
except being the stupid one of the family. Is 
a little unjustly-gained extra wealth to one 
party, which dooms the other to a life struggle 
with bitter poverty, really worth the family affec- 
tion that it costs ? I think not. 

My friend Monsieur Bonaventure Moles, dit 
Babot, came every morning to visit me ; he 
brought also his brother and brother-in-law. 



130 OYEE THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



Whenever I wanted to walk out, one of them 
would accompany me ; but as the Frenchman 
was equally courteous, and I understood him 
best, while he had lived some months at An- 
dorre studying Castilian, and knew all the ways 
of the people, I generally went out with him. 
It seems odd, by the way, that the Andorrans 
should speak pure Castilian, which every one 
told me they did ; for the inhabitants of the 
Seu d'Urgel, and I should think of San Julia 
also, speak Catalan only, which is a dialect of 
Spanish. The little Spanish that I had learned 
proved entirely useless to me there. 

M. Babot told me the valley of Andorre con- 
tains six communes or parishes, containing 
between five and six thousand souls in all. 
Each commune elects four members of the 
public councils, who meet in a kind of parlia- 
ment and decide on all affairs. Criminal matters 
are referred to the syndic, and there are, besides, 
two viguiers, or magistrates ; one appointed by 
the French government, the M. de St. Andre, who 
received me so uncourteously ; the other by the 
Bishop of Urgel, who ranks as Prince of An- 
dorre. Neither of these two resides there. He 
took me to see the Council Chamber where 



AND0RRE. 



131 



these worthies meet, and opening a cupboard 
where was a vilely-painted picture of Christ, 
told me prayer was first offered, and then the 
business of the day commenced. There was 
nothing curious or worth seeing in the place. 
It was not even very old, having, it is said, 
been built by a priest, with the money he won 
at cards. M. Moles afterwards showed me the 
gaol, a small square building, about the size of 
a very poor English four-roomed cottage. A 
few holes were drilled through an iron plate in 
the door. 

4 Surely,' said I, remembering what M. Poete 
had said, 4 you do not keep prisoners in there? ' 

4 We did,' replied he, 4 till one day we found 
the man we put there all but dead, il etait 
aspliyxie. Now we keep them on the other 
side, where there are windows.' 

4 Have you many prisoners now ? ' 

4 Two ; one for theft, and one for attempted 
assassination of a sister.' 

4 And do you punish murder with death ? ' 

M. Moles coloured. 4 Yes,' answered he some- 
what evasively ; 4 the last crime of that nature 
had not been committed — for they searched the 
records — for a hundred and fifty years before.' 



132 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

He seemed anxious to turn the conversation, 
and I felt sure the Frenchman's information was 
correct About Andorre and its ways, I had 
afterwards some conversation with my host, the 
cousin of M. Moles, dit Babot.* He had lived at 
Foix, and now kept a petty shop and travelled ; 
possibly, by the excellence of his chocolate, he 
might be a contrabandist^ or smuggler, between 
France and Spain. At all events, his cakes of 
chocolate surpassed the best to be had in Paris, 
and he was very moderate in his charges, and 
very civil to me. 

6 Here,' said he, coming into my room the 
day of my departure, c we will make out the 
bill together. I do not want to overcharge 
you ; I only want to live.' 

The bill amounted, for four days, to somewhat 
less than ten francs. I had not eaten much 
certainly, but I had eaten nothing at Foix, and 
been made to pay for a degradation du tapis, of 
which poor Keeper, who in his way is a vir- 
tuous dog, was wholly guiltless, for the tapis 
was unsoiled. My Andorran host said the 



* Jose Ventosa en la Masana de Andorra. It is the inn 
nearest the large square fountain in the chief street of Andorre. 



ANDORRE. 



133 



people of Andorre were stupid ; they did not 
march with the rest of the world. They had 
given up their mining for fear either France or 
Spain should annex them on account of their 
mineral wealth ; for the same reason they would 
not make roads, it would help invaders to enter 
their territory ; nor would they make use of 
their hot springs. The country was governed 
by a set of illiterate men, 6 who merely under- 
stood the rearing of cattle,' he said, uncon- 
sciously travestying Shakespeare ; 6 their talk is 
of beeves.' They do not elect a man like 

M. , who has been to college, and has 

travelled, and who is one of the wealthiest men 
here, but an ignorant peasant for the council. 
All that an Andorran wants is to keep things 
as they are, and live as his forefathers lived 
hundreds of years ago. They abhor all im- 
provement. 

Still, some little progress is making even in 
Andorre. Five children belonging to the most 
influential families there, are at college at Foix. 
When they grow up and return home they will 
bring with them a little leaven of the know- 
ledge of 1860. 

M. Babot and his brother have travelled in 



134 OYER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

Poitou. ' And even,' said lie, not without just 
pride, ' we have seen Paris. We said to each 
other, " Now we are so far, we must see Paris." 
We even thought of England. I do not say, 
but I may yet go there.' 

' I hope you will,' replied I. ' If you do, so 
far as I can, I shall be happy to do for you in 
England what you have done for me here.' 

And I gave him an address sure always to 
find me. I hope he will come. For an An- 
dorran, M. Bonaventure Moles is a very superior, 
enlightened man : he was very kind to me per- 
sonally in doing all he could do to render my 
stay in Andorre comfortable ; and I should be 
very glad that he should see England and her 
comfortable homes, and carry back with him a 
higher standard of civilisation and progress 
than he now possesses. 

There are one or two beautiful lakes to be 
seen among the mountains of Andorre, and from 
their heights there are splendid views of the 
surrounding chain of the Pyrenees ; there are 
beautiful flowers in its green valleys (by the 
way, the purple iris grows on the banks of the 
river, near the ivy and clematis-covered bridge 
between Escaldos and Andorre la Vieja ; and on 



ANDORRE. 



135 



most of the steep cliffs : for plants that with 
us are water-plants, grow on the summits of 
mountains in the Pyrenees), and there is good 
fishing in its clear streams, good shooting, and 
wolves, but not bears, as Tatine told me, to hunt 
in the mountains. ' They are so bold,' said 
he, ' they will carry off a sheep-dog to the foot 
of a tree, and eat him before your eyes ; but it 
is not true that they come down into the vil- 
lages and carry off children. They attack the 
flocks, and in hard winters make sad havoc, but 
pour les enfants — non.' But all these delights 
and explorations I leave for the year 2000 or 
the millennium ; it will take that or a thousand 
years more to civilise the bulk of the Andorrans, 
and till then it is not safe for any stranger, far 
less a woman, to wander amongst them. When 
the day of my departure arrived, my poor little 
hostess came to take leave of me with tears in 
her eyes. I kissed her on both cheeks, French 
fashion, and then the flood burst forth. ' Povera 
Senora ! ' said she, stroking me fondly. 6 Povera 
Senora ! non felice. Ma piu felice di me;' and 
she sobbed as if her heart would break. It 
seemed a real grief to her to part with me, so 
valuable is even a stranger's sympathy to the 



136 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



unhappy. Ah ! if we would but remember this ! 
If we would but endeavour to be what we 
proudly call ourselves, Christians, and bear one 
another's burdens, instead of making them 
heavier ! 

Are the inmates of an English boarding-house — 
for whom no petty act of malice is too mean or 
too pitiful, if it can annoy or humiliate any one 
higher in birth, education, or position than them- 
selves, and who do not even shrink from the 
falsest calumnies to drive away any such supe- 
rior — a whit better than these Andorran peasants, 
who, abhorring the light because their deeds are 
evil, elect for their representatives and governors, 
not the most intelligent and cultivated, but the 
most ignorant and debased of their country- 
men? In all countries, and in all ages, like 
will to like ! 



137 



CHAPTEE V. 



SAN JULIA. 



My host undertook to supply rne with an ass 
which should carry myself and my luggage to 
San Julia. I was afraid it would not be strong 
enough. ' Je vous en reponds de cela,' he an- 
swered. When the ass came, .it was as big as a 
moderate-sized horse, far bigger than all the 
mules I have yet seen. His son was to guide 
me, ' and perhaps,' said he, 6 he will be as good 
a guide as the one who brought you.' I believed 
he would ; but these guides are all alike ; they 
remind one of Voltaire's saying of his country- 
men : ' Scratch them, and you will find the tiger 
underneath.' They are all the same. Used to 
no women but the peasants who till the fields, 
and endure even more hardships than themselves, 
they have not even an idea of what a lady's 
strength is. My young guide was not absolutely 



138 OYER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



uncivil, but he would not stay a moment or an- 
swer a question after I reached San Julia, or, as 
the Andorrans call it, Santa Julia, and he wanted 
to compel me to trot all the way there. I stre- 
nuously resisted. 6 You may gallop home, if you 
will,' said I, 6 but I will not go at a disagreeable 
pace to please you. I came to see the country ; 
the ass must walk.' I hardly know what words 
to use in speaking of that ride. The views varied 
at every turn. Now one wound up a lovely 
narrow valley, watered by the same clear stream 
that ran below Escaldos and Andorre, and, 
shaded by alders, oaks, and willows, a rustic little 
bridge crossing the stream, the view closed in 
by a background of green mountains, with shades 
of darkest blue marking out their hollows ; then, 
stern, wild, savage mountains, denuded of trees, 
cliff rising above cliff in stony solemn grandeur 
above the narrow stream, which, bare of trees, 
curved round a bed of gravel. I can only say 
it was picturesque, beautiful, wild, and grand in 
the extreme, far wilder and more beautiful than 
the ride to Gavarnie, but not than Gavarnie it- 
self. The Ariege and Andorre essentially differ 
in colour, form, and character, from the Pyre- 
nees of Bigorre, and Beam; Luchon most resem- 
bles them. The outlines of the mountains are 



SAN JULIA. 



139 



more broken, varied, and grander ; their colour- 
ing deeper and more varied ; the blue of their 
shadows darker and more distinct. The pre- 
vailing hue of the Hautes Pyrenees is a slate- 
grey ; that of the Ariege and Andorre, the deep 
lovely purple tint we see painters give to Scottish 
moors and mountains. 

In all these journeys I saw no game, not a 
rabbit, a partridge, or a hare ; but I heard the 
pleasant song of lark, and nightingale, and 
thrush, and I saw many pretty little birds I knew 
not. We reached San Julia in about two hours. 
Here I meant to have passed the night ; but 
when I saw the preparations for my reception 
by the turning out of some French monsieurs, 
the dust that was sweeping from under the bed 
and out of corners, and inhaled the close musty 
atmosphere of the bedroom, my heart failed me 
utterly. Why should I sleep at San Julia, since 
I dared not make excursions in the vicinity ? 4 1 
shall do you no good,' said I to my host, ' if 
I stay, and I would rather go on to the Seu* 
d'Urgel,' commonly called here the Seaii or 
Se-ow. They were civil and reasonable people, 
and complied with my wish to proceed. They 

* Seu means bishopric. The Bishop of Urgel resides there. 



140 OYER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



introduced a woman who engaged, for four 
francs, to take rne to the Se-ow. I offered 
them a franc for their trouble ; they refused it ; 
but both father and son courteously did all they 
could to mount me comfortably on my mule. 
I was just mounted when a man rushed up : 
£ Was I not Inglese ? Did I not expect a letter ? ' 
6 Three,' I replied. 

4 There was one for me at the post-office ; I 
must dismount and fetch it.' 

I went. The post-office was a linen-draper's 
shop ; the master was absent ; they did not 
know if they ought to give me the letter. 6 Let 
me see it,' said I. 

It was from Mrs. Brotherton. 6 rTo others ? ' I 
cried, eagerly. 4 That is mine, but I expected 
two more ; ' and I showed my passport, got the 
letter, and went back and remounted my mule. 

The beast was a mule. It tried to throw me 
over the first bridge we came to. It would 
walk on the very edge of the precipice, clearly 
with the same villa-nous intent. I began to 
think it would be safer to walk to the Sen. I 
called my guide, and, with some difficulty, made 
known my intentions, for she had no French, I 
no Spanish, patois, and I dismounted and began 



SAN JULIA TO THE SEU. 



141 



eagerly to read my letter, instead of looking at 
the beautiful country I was traversing. Two 
stumbles warned me letter-reading on such- wild 
paths was not advisable, and 1 pocketed it to 
read at leisure, having learnt that those I loved 
were well. 

The country grew wilder every moment. It 
could scarcely be termed a valley. It was a chain 
of lofty, precipitous, barren, or nearly barren, 
mountains to the right, with here and there a few 
fields, a few straggling farm-houses, or a village, 
or one or two wee little fields only, green oases 
in that desert of stone. To the left — my side — 
a low irregular swelling chain of hills, now bleak 
and bare, now planted with vines or wheat, 
which swarthy black-browed men, who said, 
c buona dias, Senora,' were returning from till- 
ing, and along which a narrow stony track 
wound ; and between these two ranges, at their 
very base, ran the river. A little further we 
came to a small cottage by the roadside, near a 
bridge. Upon its front was inscribed : ' Por la 
Eeyna d'Espana.' 

It was the douane. Pro forma, they opened my 
bag. ' What is this ? ' < Calzette,' and ' bottine,' 
and roba antiqua (dear fastidious critics, who 



142 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



are so greatly distressed at my poverty, and the 
state of my travelling wardrobe — for I do assure 
you, oil tender-hearted, and dress-loving critics ! 
that I really have at least one decent gown to 
my back), I beg you will read the above, moire 
antique? it is not the truth, but it sounds better ; 
and have not you, one and all, united in telling 
me to recount my future adventures — not truth- 
fully, as I recounted my first — but seen couleur 
de rose ; therefore, instead of 4 old gown,' read 
moire antique. 

The douaniers were satisfied. 4 Fige,' which 
I suppose meant 4 put them in ; ' but it might 
have been translated 4 fidgets,' for it was fidget- 
ing work to get them in again. At last the bag 
was tied and replaced on the mule, I having first 
duly explained I was malato, said had brought 
with me a little tea. If you openly state such a 
thing, the douaniers are always civil, and pass 
it. I had but half a pound, which I kept for 
illness, A great blessing it has proved to me. I 
asked for a glass of water ; we exchanged adieus, 
and I and my guide walked on. I was in Spain. 
I looked at the mountain ridges and could hardly 
even then realise the fact. 

I had not walked far, when a respectably- 



SAN JULIA TO THE SEU D'UHGEL. 143 



dressed and good-looking man met and ad- 
dressed me : £ Yon are the English Senora, who 
was at Andorre ; did yon get a letter at San Julia? ' 

'Yes, and was much surprised it did not 
come to Andorre ; I expected it and two others.' 

£ Bah ! it would have been lost had it gone to 
Andorre. They have . not even a letter-box. 
They know nothing, those Andorrans. A mon- 
sieur told me the Senora was coming to Santa 
Julia, and I kept it for her. Now she has it 
safe.' 

' Thank you,' said I ; 6 1 would not have _ lost 
it for much. But I expected two other letters ; 
will you kindly forward them to me at Hotel 
d'Andria au Se-ow ? ' 

He promised civilly to do so, bowed, and we 
parted. 4 All the Spaniards I ever knew were 
polite,' said I to myself, 6 at least I shall meet 
courtesy in Spain.' 

The crimson sunset had faded into sombre 
grey before we reached the Seu d'Urgel. It is 
beautifully situated in a hollow, surrounded by 
lofty mountains. I thought I should like the Seu, 
and how pleasant it would be to make an ex- 
cursion or two among them, and seek for wild 
flowers ; and so thinking, we entered the town. 



144 OVER THE PYBENEES INTO SPAIX. 

No sooner had we done so than a tribe of half- 
naked, barefooted, or hempen-sandalled little 
vagabonds, whose swarthy, bare little breasts 
and legs reminded one of English gipsies, to 
the number of at least thirty, collected together, 
hooting and shouting at my English hat, I sup- 
pose, for I had nothing on but a dark lilac and 
white plaid gown, and a dark-grey water-proof 
cloak ; they were joined by women and girls, 
and the whole pack followed me, shouting and 
screaming, till we reached the very portal leading 

to d'Andria's hotel. We met also several dark- 
« 

robed priests, who never attempted for a moment 
to stop the tumult. No one ever does in Spain. 
The dress of the Spanish priest is more hideous 
than that of the French one. He wears a sort 
of pinafore, without sleeves, or cassock reaching 
to his ankle ; over that a cloak with sleeves. The 
hat can be best described by imagining a middle- 
sized apple-pudding (turned out of its basin) 
upon a huge pancake, whose two sides are 
folded over so as to nearly hide its top. This 
outre hat is worn end-foremost, and is the very 
oddest and most unbecoming, and, I should 
think, uncomfortable, head-dress imaginable. 
At the Hotel d'Andria, my guide screamed 



THE SEU D'URGEL. 



145 



and vociferated some time in vain, a female head 
now and then emerged from the staircase above 
the entrance to the stable (a common arrange- 
ment, I afterwards found, in Spain, where, in the 
ventas haunted by the muleteers, one enters 
through the stable), and then disappeared, but 
no one came or answered the summons. At 
last a man came, dark-visaged, with curling 
black moustachios, and hawk-like, dark, fierce- 
eyed face, tall and stout in person, with full 
white shirt sleeves, puffed out below the cuffs 
of his black coat, a small turn-down white 
collar, and black necktie, who politely offered 
me his arm and conducted me up-stairs. My 
guide followed, and we explained that I wanted 
some hard-boiled eggs, bread, wine, and a bed- 
room. In fact I had eaten nothing but a little 
bread and two small squares of chocolate all 
that day, although I had walked at ]east seven 
miles of rough mountain road, besides the 
two hours' ride from Andorre la Vieja to San 
Julian. 4 Prao, prao.' I should have it directly. 
So I sat down in the kitchen, joyfully noting its 
clean scoured tables and whitewashed walls. 
Immediately a stormy discussion began between 
my host and his wife. She said there was no 

L 



146 OYER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



bedroom ; he vowed I should have one. If I 
had not been faint with hunger and sad-hearted 
at finding myself alone among strangers, of 
whose language I knew not a word — for the 
very little Spanish illness had left me power to 
learn, was Castilian, and these people spoke 
Catalan, & patois dialect — I could have laughed 
outright to see this tall large man gesticulate and 
dance with fury. To hear him shout, one would 
have thought he meant to stab somebody or 
other. Now he danced up to his wife and 
shook his fists and his shoulders, and then threw 
up his opened hands ; now he danced up to his 
daughter, who never stirred. No one took the 
smallest notice. At last, overpowered by his 
exertions in my favour, he sat down and wiped 
his face. His son, a pretty little boy of nine or 
ten, went up to him, and put his arm round his 
neck, and in a few moments Senor d'Andria was 
fast asleep. I found afterwards that his normal 
state was either sleeping or raging. 

In about half an hour he woke up, and in- 
quired about my 4 quarto ' (bedroom) ; nothing 
was done, and again he danced and screamed 
until he was tired, when he dropped off to 
sleep, and so it went on for nearly three hours, 



THE SEU D'UEGEL. 



147 



during which time his daughter sat doing no- 
thing, while his wife was cooking the supper. 
All that time I was fainting for food and drink, 
and in vain repeating the few, to them, intel- 
ligible Spanish words I knew — c Vino, pan, 
agua fresca, huevos duros,' or hard eggs. I 
could get nothing. At last M. Andria woke 
up, looked at his watch, shouted furiously to 
the two servant-girls, who disappeared, but soon 
returned, bearing, one a truckle-bed frame, the 
other a mattress and bedding, from which I 
concluded I had some -chance of a bed, if not 
of anything to eat, and immediately afterwards 
there was a general move, the soupe was ready, 
and I was to go with the rest. I knew I could 
not swallow the greasy Spanish cookery, and I 
never, if I can avoid it, dine or sup at a table 
d'hote. The sort of men one meets are not 
precisely those a lady would like to mix with. 
I could only repeat 4 Non sopa ; yo soy malato. 
Huevos duros, pan, vino, agua fresca;' and at 
last, after waiting till half-past ten at night, having 
reached the Seu at about seven, I got something 
to eat for myself and Keeper, and, tired and 
dispirited, retreated to bed. 



148 OVEK THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE SEU D'URGEL. 

Oh, that dreadful night, after all the day's 
fatigue ! I was never still two minutes. Sleep 
never visited my eyes during my five nights' 
stay at the Seu d'Urgel. The room was as dirty 
as that at Andorre, and when I afterwards 
complained of it to Senor Andria's son-in-law, 
who spoke French, and was really a gentleman- 
like young man, he explained, like the Pyre- 
neans of Bagneres, £ that no one ever did wash 
floors there ; it was not the custom ; the dust 
had not caused the fleas ; but Monsieur,' 
pointing to a guest, ' occupied the room before 
me, and Monsieur kept squirrels there.' Fancy, 
in hot Spain, being put into an unswept room 
which had been inhabited by squirrels ! And 
yet, in some things, the Spaniards are far 
cleaner than the French. The ceilings and 
walls of this hotel were all whitewashed and 



THE SEU D'UKGEL. 



149 



clean, and the tables off which the food was 
eaten were scoured every morning, and were 
white as snow, as in a well-kept Yorkshire 
kitchen. But they have not yet made the dis- 
covery that floors, especially in a hot country, 
require also washing. Nor are they likely to 
do so, for both French people and Spanish are 
singularly unprogressive. c C'est la coutume ici' 
is sufficient to excuse in their eyes any time- 
honoured inconvenience. How easy, neverthe- 
less, would it be to keep their floors, which are 
all either of brick, marble, or tile, clean in 
Spain, by mopping them over every two or 
three days, an operation which would take 
about a fourth of the time consumed in sprink- 
ling water as they do over the corridors, but 
not where it is more necessary — in the rooms. 
But mops are unknown in Spain. The Spanish 
invention has not yet reached a mop. I really 
think a fortune might be made by importing 
English mops. It is such a lazy, negligent, 
' canna be fashed ' sort of way of appearing to 
clean a room, that I think it would suit French 
and Spanish indolence to a hair, and a well- 
mopped room would be freer from insects than 
one merely badly swept, as is the case now. 



150 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



Oh, what a dirty set they are, both French 
and Spaniards ! Keeper's supper disagreed with 
him — probably, like me, he cannot eat oil — and 
next morning he was sick. I called the girl, 
who came very unwillingly and cleaned it away. 
The fashion is to leave whatever is spilt to dry 
on the floor. I also made her sweep the corners 
of the room free from the quantity of dust ac- 
cumulated in them. Grumbling, she complied, 
but having swept it out of my room, she coolly 
opened the bedroom door opposite, and swept 
it under the bed there. Is it any wonder the 
unhappy traveller has no rest by day or by 
night from jumpers and crawlers ? 

Drearily went by the hours in my hot small 
cage of insects at the Seu. I wrote to friends 
the day after my arrival, and wishing to post 
my letters myself, one of the maids was sent 
with me to buy stamps. When I got to the 
linen-draper's shop, where they were sold, the 
mistress did not know what value the stamps 
ought to be, and asked if England was not in 
America ! A young man came in, and she 
appealed to him. Happily for me, he spoke 
French, and he very civilly undertook to escort 
me to the post-office, where they would know 



THE SEU D'UEGEL. 



151 



what stamp I ought to have. In order fully to 
appreciate his civility, you ought to know, dear 
readers (if readers I have), that I and the girl 
had been followed through the streets and into 
the shop by a tribe of howling, shouting girls, 
women, and children, and one or two of the 
lowest class of men. It suffices to be a strange 
face and a foreign woman walking alone in 
Spain to expose one to insult. A paese, a coun- 
trywoman, may walk alone, dressed like a har- 
lequin if she think fit, and no notice is taken 
of her ; but let a strange female be never so 
quietly dressed — and what dress can be quieter 
than black ? — she is followed by hooting 
and insult, both in Andorre and Spain. The 
last-named country is not in this respect a bit 
more civilised than brutal Andorre, and for 
the same reason. The French, whatever their 
faults, are aimable, if not exactly what we term 
amiable, a much higher quality. They have a 
natural pleasure in obliging. It is impossible to 
five amongst them long, and not to like the 
French. But the Spaniard's heart is rotten at the 
core. The few Spanish gentlemen I have known 
in my life have been polished and courteous, 
and I doubt not there are thousands of good 



152 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

and noble men in Spain. But it is not by the 
character of her higher classes that the character 
of a nation must be estimated, but by that of 
the mass. It is not our few great nobles, our 
landed gentry, our merchants, or our manufac- 
turers, that have made England what she is this 
day — the leader in every work of progress — the 
pioneer of all improvements ; it is the great, 
true, noble heart of the English nation, beating 
healthily and vigorously in all manly English 
hearts — in her sailors, her soldiers, her navvies, 
her cotton weavers, who so nobly endured priva- 
tion and famine without murmuring, because 
their big, great, noble hearts espoused the cause 
of the slave, and freedom ; it is the poor ill-fed, 
worse-housed Dorsetshire and Midland agricul- 
tural labourer, toiling stubbornly on through a 
lifetime of privation and drudgery, looking to 
God only for his reward ; it is the deep sense of 
duty pervading all ranks, ennobling all minds, 
that has made England what she is. 

But gain is the duty of the Spaniard. Be- 
longing to an impoverished country, money is 
his ruling passion. He makes a contract to 
perform a certain thing for a certain fixed price, 
and expects you to perform your part of the 



THE SEU D'UKGEL. 



153 



contract, while he is trying, by neglecting or 
evading his, under any circumstances which 
enable him to do so, to compel you to pay a 
second time for the thing you have already bar- 
gained for, and which it is his bounden duty to 
perform. There is no true manliness, no pity 
for the weakness of women or children, in the 
Spaniard's heart ; they are, as a class, brutalised, 
degraded, and debased. The more I see of 
them the more I abhor them ; and from Ariege 
to Spain illustrates the three degrees of com- 
parison. The Ariegois are bad ; the Andorrans 
worse ; the Spaniards worst of all ! 

Arrived at the general post-office, the master 
knew England was not in America ; he did not 
seem so sure that England was not in London ; 
but he had no stamps. However, he civilly 
sent for some ; they were affixed to my letters, 
and I posted them. I heard afterwards of the 
safe arrival of some of them. I would here 
advise all travellers in foreign countries always 
to stamp and post their own letters. The people 
who offer to do either may have the best inten- 
tions, but the foreign habit of procrastination 
renders their being laid aside to be attended to 
by-and-by, and forgotten altogether — a very 



154 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

likely thing. Mr. Howitt, in one of his clever 
books on Germany, tells a story so pat to the 
purpose, and so illustrative of foreign dilatori- 
ness, that I must quote it. 

Travelling by packet-boat with his family, I 
think up the Ehine, he noticed that every lady 
who entered tore her dress against a nail in the 
boat. 6 Why do you not remove that nail ? ' 
asked he. 4 Oh, they had not had time — they 
should do it by-and-by.' Mr. Howitt quietly 
went to a place where he had observed some 
carpenter's tools lying, got them, and extracted 
the nail. 4 You are an Englishman ? ' said a 
gentleman, coming up to him. 4 Yes,' answered 
Mr. Howitt ; 4 but how did you know that ? ' 
4 Oh, easily enough. You took out the nail at 
once ; the Germans would have left it there to 
tear everybody's clothes for the next six months, 
and always said they were going to take it out 
by-and-by, when they had time.' It is this 
promptitude, this doing at once that which 
ought to be done, this instinctive sense of duty, 
which is above all things the merit and the 
characteristic of an Englishman. 

All I saw of the Seu d'Urgel was in that 
short walk. It was too disagreeable to be so 



THE SEU D'UKGEL. 



155 



followed and hooted to go outside the inn again, 
and besides no one seemed willing to go out 
with me either. I noticed that in several of the 
streets the lower story or basement of the 
houses consisted of archways, under which were 
shops, forming also a cooler thoroughfare for 
the people than the unshaded streets. There 
was a terrace in front of my window, where, 
when the intense heat permitted, I used to walk 
up and down, admiring the extreme beauty of 
the mountains beyond. Below this terrace the 
military band played one evening, and M. and 
Madame Andria, and their married daughter, 
Madame Federigo, her pretty black-eyed little 
baby, just beginning to run, who took a fancy 
to me, as children generally do, and always held 
out her little arms to come to me, her husband 
and their friends, and the servants ; all congre- 
gated there to listen to them. Below the ter- 
race was a road and a wide open space with a 
few trees ; there most of the townspeople were 
sitting or walking about in groups, while the 
lower class of people occasionally danced to the 
music. The ladies had most of them made them- 
selves very smart, except poor Madame Andria, 
who had a dinner to cook ; but none of them 



156 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

wore the mantilla. La Senora Federigo was 
very handsome, and had the true graceful car- 
riage and walk for which, I have so often heard 
and read, the Spanish women are celebrated ; a 
rich olive complexion, pomegranate cheeks and 
lips, dazzling white teeth, and soft silky black 
hair, not frizzed out so as to deform the graceful 
contour of the head, but artistically twisted 
loosely below it — a sort of compound between 
the old classical Greek knot and the modern 
fashion. Her husband was evidently very much 
in love with her. 4 Ma femme,' said he to me 
the day after my arrival, when he introduced sa 
petite to me, £ est tres-jeune, nous avons ete marie 
deux annees, et elle n'a pas encore vingt ans.' 
Her father, too, softened his voice and did not 
shout at her. He was evidently proud of being 
the father of La Senora Federigo. She had 
clearly married above her station, and was 6 a 
credit and an honour to her family.' And there 
was the equally pretty, and more amiable look- 
ing, single sister unnoticed, as is usual. I have 
no patience with this worldliness in families — 
this making a favourite of the successful ones, 
which is so universal. Surely, it is from their 
family that the unsuccessful in the contest of 



THE SEU D'UKGEL 1 



157 



life ought to find pity and comfort. Whether 
man or woman, they too often find the re- 
verse. 

I stayed at the Seu in order to await the 
arrival of a muleteer returning towards Calaf, 
from whence I could take the rail to Barcelona, 
there being no other way of travelling across 
the mountains ; but when I learnt how I was to 
travel, not on a side-saddle or any saddle, but 
perched up on a pack a yard high, my heart 
failed me. It needed all Seiior Federisjo's 
rhetoric, and the knowledge that I must go that 
way or retrace my steps through Andorre, to 
determine me. I do believe I was very pro- 
voking, for I felt horribly afraid. Senor Federigo 
made a bargain for me with the muleteer 
when he came. He was returning home with 
unloaded mules, so that I was rather a godsend 
to him than otherwise. He also was un homme 
de confiance, who would take good care of me. 
May God defend me from un homme de con- 
fiance in future ! This muleteer, Joan Montas 
by name, was a fine-looking, well-made man, 
rather, I should say, a good specimen of his 
class, and a bit of a dandy in his way. His 
dress was a scarlet woven night-cap, the long 



158 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIX. 

end of which folded over in a square protects 
the wearer from sun-stroke, and is the common 
head-gear of Bigorran, Ariegeois, Andorran, and 
Spanish peasantry so far as I have yet gone in 
Spain ; a blue velveteen waistcoat, and white 
trousers, girded by the gay coloured scarf com- 
mon to all these districts. He had, I thought, 
a good-humoured countenance, and I rather 
liked his looks. The postmaster of San Julia 
kept his word, for that last night, when I was 
sitting gloomily by the nickering light of the oil- 
lamp common in Spain, thinking of the dreadful 
ride before me next day, in he walked with two 
English letters. I needed something to cheer 
me and pass away the time, for all my posses- 
sions were packed up, and I had nothing to do. 
I was to be called at three in the morning, 
as we were to breakfast and start by four ; so as 
soon as I had read them, I went to bed and 
tried to sleep, but in vain, the creepers and hop- 
pers gave me no respite. I did not even close 
my eyes. I was almost glad when Joan rapped 
at my door. I got up and drank a little choco- 
late and ate a small bit of bread, and before I 
had finished Senor Andria made his appearance, 
and descended with Joan to the stables to see 



THE SEU d'URGEL. 



159 



to the packing of my seat. All ! when I saw 
that dreadful seat, reaching nearly to the top of 
the stable, how like a naughty child I behaved ! 
The tears came into my eyes, I nearly sobbed 
outright, and declared I could not sit without 
stirrup, or foot-rest, or support, on that mountain 
of horse-cloths. Senor Andria stamped, and 
raved, and danced at me in the most fatherly 
manner, and at last fairly scolded me into my 
seat. 

' What did I come there for, 7 he said, truly 
enough, 4 if I did not mean to do like other 
women ? Spanish women rode so.' 

In despair, I submitted to my fate. Then, 
when up, Senor Andria showed me how I was 
to hold on by my hands to the cords which 
bound the package to the saddle, and also I was 
to bend myself nearly double as my mule went 
out of the stable door, for fear I should break 
my head. Senor Andria saw me safely off, 
and wished me a good journey, wishing also, 
I dare be sworn, he might never be troubled 
with an Inglese again, and I proceeded with my 
muleteer in a sort of mute despair, expecting 
every moment to fall off as we descended the 
steep paths from the Seu, and dash my brains 



160 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



out. However, after the first ten minutes, 
finding I had not rolled off in descending a road 
like a flight of stairs, I began to grow recon- 
ciled to my elevated position ; then to find I was 
able to look about me and enjoy the scenery ; 
and finally I felt quite at my ease, left my mule 
to walk as close to precipices, and pick her way, 
as she chose, without troubling myself about 
her, and began to enjoy myself thoroughly. 

Before you despise me, dear readers, let me 
insense you as to what mule travelling is. First 
of all comes a sheepskin, over which is placed 
an enormously high saddle without stirrups, 
with a large iron loop in front to fasten goods 
to ; on one side of this saddle swung an empty 
wooden crate, such as in England is used to 
pack crockery in, balanced on the other side by 
my carpet-bag ; and across the mule's neck was 
a sack, holding at one end my small tin bonnet- 
box, at the other a shawl containing guide- 
books, dictionary, &c. ; under all this went the 
bridle of the mule, for the mules lead them- 
selves, but they are always bridled, and muzzled 
like a dog. The saddle has no crupper, but a 
rounded board covered with leather, about six 
inches broad, goes round the haunches of the 



OVER THE PYRENEES TO CALAF. 161 

animal, and joins by traces to the saddle. I 
should think it far less painful to the mules 
than our tail-band and crupper. Between and 
above all the above-named articles, Senor Anclria 
had made Joan cord a pile of useless sacks and 
horse-blankets, on which I sat as securely and 
as much at my ease, now I had got used to my 
elevated position in life, as a queen on her 
throne, or M. Blondin on his tight rope. 

That morning's ride was one of the bright 
hours of my life. We clambered up and down 
precipices, and wound round mountain-sides on 
narrow tracts, worn apparently by the feet of 
goats and mules only, for roads they cannot be 
called ; oftenest our way was along the partially 
dry bed of a mountain torrent. The whole 
chain of the Pyrenees unrolled like a map be- 
fore me, mountain succeeding mountain in in- 
terminable distance. Now we rocle along a 
narrow mountain defile, among bare grey rocks, 
piled wall-like against the sky, at whose base 
ran a narrow dark-looking river, not roaring 
along over stones, foaming like the Ariege, but 
flowing on Styx-like and gloomy ; our path, a 
narrow craggy ledge overhanging the river, and 
beyond in the distance a narrow, crazy, pictu- 

M 



162 0YEH THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



resque-looking bridge, which we were to cross, 
to reach a road as ledge-like as the one we were 
on, on the opposite side of the river ; so narrow, 
in fact, that it was not at first discernible. 
We traversed many such bridges that day. 
Then we ascended a mountain-side, so steep 
that the stairs in most London houses would 
have been mere child's play to ride up com- 
pared to it, and emerged on the top of a range 
of hills, flat and level nearly as a plain, barren, 
dry, parched, and dreary. Well may Mr. Ford 
speak of 6 Tawny Spain.' On all sides rose 
mountain ranges, tier above tier of grey, broken, 
rugged stone, shadowed with deepest blue, and 
studded here and there with gleams of pink and 
crimson where the light fell. Martin painted 
such scenes as these in his ' Cephalus and Procris,' 
(I think it is), and in others of his pictures. 
If he never visited Spain in the flesh, he did in 
the spirit. He must have seen it in his dreams, 
for those everlasting walls of rock, that bare 
sloping foreground, and their hues, are all 
Spanish. 

Every artist should visit Spain. Such a tour 
would make the fortune of a man of genius, 
for at every turn he would find fresh and un- 



OVER THE PYRENEES TO CALAF. 163 



exhausted subjects for his pencil, instead of the 
trite conventional ones so often selected for 
want of better choice. For instance, we passed 
a group of peasants reposing on the hill-side ; 
they might have been gipsies for ought I know, 
but they had no beauty of form or face ; it was 
only the picturesque grouping of the whole set 
around what was worth an artist's going to 
Spain to see. In the centre of the group stood 
an ass, laden with packages like mine, minus 
the crate ; but upon those packages, as fearlessly 
and securely as on a bed of down, slept a child 
some two years old. It was not a pretty-faced 
child, but I never saw anything so exquisite 
as its attitude of perfect repose — anything so 
beautiful as the curves of its delicately moulded 
limbs, whose foreshortening — its feet were 
turned towards me — would have been a study 
for Eaphael or Correggio— anything so lovely as 
the rounded dimpled arms. What a study for 
an artist about to paint 6 The Flight into Egypt,' 
the whole group would have made. 

One is tired of the old conventional virgin 
sitting on an ass, with the Infant Jesus in her 
lap, and Joseph leading the beast by the bridle. 
Here was the same subject in a totally new 

M 2 



164 OYER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

aspect. Beside the ass or mule, on each side 
stood father and mother ; at a little distance two 
black-eyed, bronzed, half-naked boys — fit models 
for St. John ; while the sleeping infant occupied 
the centre of the picture, and a background of 
mountains appropriately filled up the picture. 
I have read somewhere that the grouping of a 
picture should be pyramidical, the centre or 
principal figure forming its apex. In this natural 
group of figures this rule of art was completely 
fulfilled ; the distance of the parents, who were 
occupied in unloading and preparing for a meal, 
making them fall under a lower line than the 
ass and the child. 

I did not see many new or beautiful flowers 
during this ride. One beautiful one recalled to 
me the clays of my childhood, for it used to 
grow in our old vicarage garden. I little 
thought when I admired it then, I should ever 
see it growing in its native home in Spain. We 
never knew its name. It has narrow grey 
leaves, not unlike those of the corn-flower, but 
growing all together like a tuft of ash-grey grass. 
From this rise narrow grey leafless stems, about 
half a yard high, with a bud exactly like that of 
n unblown corn-flower. The blossom, however, 



OVER THE PYRENEES TO CALAF. 165 



is composite, more nearly allied to that of the 
hawkweed, and consists like it of a star, only 
of two shades of blue, pale cerulean and the 
deepest gentian blue. It is exquisitely lovely 
in itself, but makes little show in a garden, and 
fades in a few hours in water, for which reasons, 
I suppose, it is not often cultivated. 

Most of the shrubs and plants that grew in 
these wild and sultry regions were aromatic. 
We rode in many places through a brushwood 
of rosemary and lavender plants, the latter just 
coming into flower, among common thyme, lemon 
thyme, peppermint, fennel, sage, marjoram, tansy, 
balm of two or three kinds, and wild clematis. 
~No dew appears to me ever to fall in Spain. In 
those early mountain rides, when I started at 
half-past four in the morning, the air was al- 
ways as clear, the ground and plants as free 
from moisture as at noonday. It was delicious 
to breathe that pure invigorating atmosphere. 
However tired I was from weeks of sleepless 
nights, the moment I was mounted and riding 
among the hills, all sensation of fatigue and 
weakness left me. I dare say there was some- 
thing medicinal and healing in an atmosphere 
impregnated with the scent of so many odo- 



i 



166 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



riferous plants. German, doctors send their 
patients to walk in pine woods, and I have my- 
self experienced the invigorating effects of the 
smell of the fir-trees, when faint and tired I 
have rested beneath them, but these odours were 
so mixed that one was hardly conscious of any 
scent, only one felt the air was peculiarly soft 
and balmy. I used to wish a shower of rain 
would fall, that I might enjoy more perfectly 
the delicious scent of the lavender and rose- 
mary ; but it rarely rains in Spain. 

We came at last to a small wayside venta or 
inn, where we were to bait and rest the mules 
and breakfast ourselves, if food was to be had. 
The foremost mule led the way into the stable, 
and the other three, mine among them, followed. 
These creatures seem to know by instinct the 
route they are to take, and the houses at which 
they are to stop, and never turn aside for a mo- 
ment, or make a mistake, in those all but track- 
less — often utterly trackless — moors. In the 
stable Joan lifted me off my perch, and a boy led 
me to a flight of stone steps in one corner. I 
ascended them as directed, and found myself in a 
long, large, dirty room, with two long deal tables, 
one at either end, and various chairs, forms, and 



OVER THE PYRENEES TO CALAF. 167 

benches. At the first table eight or ten mule- 
teers were dining ; so I went up to the other, 
and sat down waiting for Joan, who, having fed 
his mules, now came to feed himself. The food 
was cabbage soup, kitchened with grease, and 
bread soaked in it, and some queer-looking meat, 
lettuces, and eggs ; for the Spaniard, like the 
Frenchman, however poor, must have two or 
three plats. The wine was in curious-shaped 
bottles, not unlike those inkstands warranted 
never to upset, or still more like an oil- can in 
shape ; that is, a long narrow spout projected like 
an arm from one side, the opening or mouth of 
which was no bigger than a quill. From this the 
peasants drink, never letting it touch their lips, 
but, holding the bottle above their heads, they 
direct a continuous stream into their open 
mouths. They never spill a drop ; but I should 
think it required much early practice to attain 
such dexterity. One invaluable advantage these 
bottles have to lazy Andorrans, for they also 
use them, and equally lazy Spaniards, is that 
they obviate the necessity for drinking-glasses, 
which require washing after every meal. 

Joan had been very civil all the morning, and 
I was bent on rewarding him. I said to myself, 



168 OYER THE PYRENEES IXTO SPAIN". 

I would give hirn five francs over and above the 
fifteen Senor Federigo had agreed I was to pay 
hirn at the close of our journey ; and, moreover, 
I would treat hirn with cigars. Ford says, ' It 
is desirable to keep your muleteer in good- 
humour, and the best thing you can give him is 
cigars.' I had one real good Habana by me in 
case of tooth-ache — smoking being the only thing 
that ever relieves me ; but as the critics are in- 
clined to think ill of me already, I beg to inform 
them I abhor tobacco, and never smoke except 
to seek relief from violent pain. This precious 
cigar I determined to bestow on Joan, and to get 
him some more as opportunity offered. Ford says 
good smuggled cigars are always attainable in 
these mountains. He accepted the cigar, and 
seemed in the best of humours ; but, ah ! when 
we had to mount again, the cruel, faithless man, 
forgetting all his promises to Senor Federigo, 
that I should ride comfortably, had unpacked 
the comfortable seat Senor Andria had prepared 
for me, and left me nothing to sit upon but a 
sack stuffed tight with straw till it was as hard 
as a stone, and so loosely bound by ropes that I 
had no secure hold to cling to in ascending and 
descending precipices. He did not do it to save 



OVER THE PYRENEES TO CALAF. 169 



the mule, for he could as easily have removed 
my packages on to the leading mule ; he did it 
to annoy me, and compel me to walk, hoping, 
as I afterwards found, that I should offer to pay 
him something extra for a little more comfort. 
Ford says, 4 The smallest civility must be paid 
for in Spain.' It is true. Between Calaf and 
Barcelona, I wanted a glass of water at the rail- 
way station. A well-dressed man said he would 
show me the buffet ; he did, and I got water. 
My self-constituted guide — for, of course, having 
eyes, I could read the word ' buffet ' — followed 
me to the railway carriage and held out his hand. 
I gave him two copper coins, and he grinned, 
contented, and went away. 

It did not occur to me that Joan was seeking 
to extort money from me ; and perhaps it was as 
well, for the more I had offered for comfort the 
more he would have tried to extort. I simply 
thought him ill-tempered and savage ; besides, 
I had only just enough to take me to Barcelona. 

I mounted, therefore, having in vain tried to 
get him to alter my seat. He affected to do so, 
pulled this cord and that cord, and did every- 
thing except what would have made it more 
comfortable. We rocle on a couple or three 



170 OYER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



miles, when he asked if I would stop at a way- 
side inn and have coffee. I saw he wished it, 
and wanting to keep him in good-humour, as- 
sented. He went in and had a cup of coffee, a 
smoke, and a chat with his friends. I remained 
outside on my mule, and coffee was brought to 
me, but it was so bad I could hardly drink it. 
Most coffee is bad in Spain. This coffee was 
brought in a large cup and saucer, I suppose 
because I was riding ; but the usual custom in 
Andorre, and Spanish wayside inns, is to drink 
it out of glass tumblers, such as we use at dinner. 
My host at Andorre made bitter complaints to 
me one day of the number of tumblers that got 
broken, especially in frosty weather. 1 Why do 
you use them then ? ' said I. 

4 The peasants will have them ; they are 
larger, you see, and hold more than a coffee-cup.' 

I thought it would have been easy to have 
large coffee-cups, but probably they are not 
easily attainable in either country, at least in 
the wild districts. 

I got very tired of waiting, for the flies teased 
the poor mules sadly ; and they all began kick- 
ing so violently, impatient to be off and out of 
that hot, sunny, shelterless street, that I thought I 



OVER THE PYRENEES TO CALAF. 171 



should be thrown. But at last Joan came, and 
we again started. Of course I paid for this sump- 
tuous repast. 

A little further on, my side and back gave me 
such exquisite pain, I said I could ride no further. 
The sack of straw was stuffed so as to form a 
sharp cone, and it must be hollowed out to en- 
able me to sit. An elderly man who came by 
saw what I needed, and tried to persuade Joan 
to alter it to a hollow, but he would not do it, 
and I was obliged to dismount and walk. 

Our way lay along a rough stony road, the 
bed of a mountain torrent, and then up the spur 
of a mountain range. In all that road Joan 
never once stayed for me. I often stumbled or 
hit my foot against a sharp stone, but I had no 
time to stop to rub the bruise. Joan and the 
mules were often out of sight even, and but for 
Keeper, who ran backwards and forwards be- 
tween them and me, I should have lost their 
track. 

"We overtook several peasants, men and wo- 
men, walking, or on mules. The seats of all the 
riders were so packed as to form a hollow to 
sit in. Joan told them all I was obstinate and 
would not ride, and every now and then, after 



172 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

they joined us, affected to stop, and asked taunt- 
ingly, 6 if I would not ride now we had a moun- 
tain to climb.' 

We climbed the mountain and descended it. 
One woman pitied me at first, for indeed I was 
in intense pain. My back had been injured some 
months before, by being thrown down by a large 
package flung against me, at the Great Northern 
Eailway office in Pall Mall, and that rough hard 
seat, and the consequent jolting, made it very 
painful. At her request, Joan lent me a hand- 
kerchief to tie tight round my waist, but though 
he fully understood my broken Spanish, ' that 
I had had a fall in London, that the riding on 
a hard seat was unbearable,' he would not alter 
it. I told him at last indignantly that the Swiss 
guides never left their voyageurs, and piqued 
themselves on taking care of them, even at the 
hazard of their lives. 

' lis les portent dans leurs bras, quand ils ne 
peuvent marcher. Ils sont paye pour cela,' he 
replied, phlegmatically. 

Was not he paid a fair price ? Of course ; 
for I had nothing to do with the bargain, and 
he had undertaken to make me comfortable 
while under his care. 



OYER THE PYRENEES TO CALAF. 173 



4 You would not care,' said I, 4 if I never 
walked again all my life, in consequence of this 
hard seat, though I told you I had been thrown 
down, and injured a bone in London. I cannot 
sit on that seat. I should fall off, fainting with 
pain.' 

4 If you can't sit,' he replied, insolently, 4 1 can 
fling you across the mule like a sack of wheat.' 

I understood perfectly, for I comprehend far 
more than I can express, as the Catalan dialect 
is partly French, partly Italian, but I did not 
choose to understand. 

4 No comprende,' said I. 4 Non, marciera, per- 
dero la vita si montava queste mule ; marciera 
sulle miei piedes.' 

4 Yo montera,' he replied, 4 1 shall ride how- 
ever,' and lashing on his mules to their swiftest 
pace, up that stony staircase road, often ankle 
deep in water ; he gloried in seeing me painfully 
endeavouring in vain to keep up with them. 

He and the other men pointed out that I 
could not be ill, for I had a colour. No one 
pities me when I am ill, on account of this 
hereditary misfortune. I never lose my colour, 
even when fainting, till I become senseless. In 
fact, colour is with me a certain sign of illness ; 



174 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

while when people pity me and say how ill I 
look, I am feeling remarkably well. It was so 
with my father. His hectic hue always deep- 
ened in illness, and he did not lose it even in 
death. JSTo one could have looked on that 
flushed cheek, and believed it was the face of 
the dead. 

I was dying of thirst. I had emptied the 
small quantity of wine remaining in my wine- 
flask, and every now and then I stopped at the 
mountain springs and snatched a handful of 
water as I passed. I dared not stop to fill my 
flask and drink, for fear of never being able to 
overtake the mules again, as nothing would in- 
duce Joan to slacken their pace ; in fact, he 
urged them on by blows to a quicker walk than 
when I was riding. I snatched a branch of 
wild rosemary as I hastened past, and crushed 
it in my hands, and its strong aromatic scent, 
far stronger than that of our garden-plant, a 
little revived me ; it was as good as a bottle of 
smelling-salts. 

By the time we descended the mountain I 
could scarcely crawl. The sole of one of my 
shoes had a large hole in the middle, and my 
bare foot was on the ground, and I had yet 



OVER THE PYRENEES TO CALAF. 175 

a mile to go. How I reached my journey's end 
God knows. The mules were far out of sight, 
but I saw a village beyond, and toiled on, hoping 
I was in the right path. Even Keeper, worn 
out by fatigue, had deserted me and followed 
the mules. I felt as if I must faint every mo- 
ment, and was conscious of a deeper flush from 
the blood rushing to my head. All that day I 
had had nothing but bread, and I had had no 
sleep now for at least nine nights. When I 
got to the village, I could just articulate 
6 mules.' A man understood me, and pointed 
out which of the two streets I was to take. I 
reached the venta ; passed the stable ; Joan came 
down the stairs, saying he was coming to seek 
me. Everybody looked alarmed. I dare say I 
was white enough then, for one rushed for 
water, another for wine ; the room seemed to 
turn round ; a mist was before my eyes ; every- 
thing looked blue. Supported by Joan, I stag- 
gered to a bench, laid my head on the table, 
and fainted. 

They bathed my hands and face, and gave 
me vinegar and water to drink. In my life 
I never tasted anything so delicious as that 
draught. I wonder vinegar and water is not 



17C OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



oftener given to the sick, especially in cases of 
fever. Nothing is so refreshing and restorative. 

The people of the inn were very kind to me ; 
so was a Spaniard, there by chance, who spoke 
a little French, and even Joan looked alarmed. 
' She will kill herself with drinking cold water,' 
I heard him say, as I swallowed glass after 
glass. He wanted, however, to leave me there, 
and the traveller explained to me that if I was 
ill I had better stay there all night. 6 And how 
am I to get to Calaf ? ' said I. No one knew. 
In fact, if I left my treacherous muleteer, I 
might have to stay in the mountains for weeks 
— and without money, for I had only English 
bank notes, and circular notes, neither of which 
I could change till I reached Barcelona. I must 
therefore go on. I explained this to the good- 
natured Spaniard, and also that Joan had com- 
pelled me to walk above ten miles up and down 
precipitous mountains, by wilfully making my 
seat on the mule impossible to endure. The 
Spanish mule saddle has a large piece of steel 
projecting in front of it : will it be believed, he 
wanted me to sit on that, uncovered. The sack 
of straw which I demanded when we started at 
midday, after he had removed my blankets, was 



OYER THE PYRENEES TO CALAF. 177 

a favour, only conceded because, as I found 
afterwards, it struck him the straw would serve 
as provender for his mules. He declared 6 the 
seat could not be altered;' my host and the 
stranger agreed it could easily be done, and said 
if I would accompany them to the stable and 
show them what I wanted, they would do all 
they could to make me comfortable. They 
pulled out a quantity of the straw against all 
Joan could say or do to prevent them, and find- 
ing himself beaten, he gave it the mules to eat; 
and my kind friends spread the rest over the 
steel loop in front of the saddle, and made me 
a comfortable hollow seat, which I could endure, 
though my back was dreadfully sprained by all 
the previous jolting, and they mounted me, and 
wished me 'buon viaggio ! ' May God bless them 
for their kindness to a friendless, solitary, un- 
protected woman ! Joan was very sulky for a 
long while, of which I took no notice ; but at 
last he seemed to come to, and inquired if 6 ca 
va bene ?' and I replied 6 Si.' 

JSTo one who has not tried can imagine the 
horror of riding on a hard conical seat, 
without bridle, or crutch, or stirrup, or foot- 
board, with nothing but a loose cord to 



178 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

hold on by with each hand ; so placed, more- 
over, that in holding it, your shoulders are 
wrenched as if in a backboard. When your 
mule descends a precipice, the whole weight of 
your body rests on the hands so placed behind 
you, while at every step she takes you are thrown 
nearly over her neck. It is like being at once 
in a backboard, and tied up by the thumbs ; and 
in ascending, the being jolted up into the air 
and falling back upon a seat as hard as a sack 
of stones and about as even, is enough to lame 
a person, whose spine has already received a 
severe injury, for life. I have not yet recovered 
those two hours' ride and that walk ; probably 
I never shall. 

We rode till about eight o'clock, when we 
reached a venta, where we went to sleep. It 
was a dirty-looking hole, apparently, but there 
was a terrace behind it, from whence there was 
rather a pretty view, where I went and sat in 
the cool and drank water, and ate chocolate 
cakes I had got at our last resting-place, but had 
been then too ill to eat. I was delighted there- 
fore when Joan, coming also on to the terrace, 
caught sight of two rabbits, and carrying them 
into the house, ordered them for supper. When 



OVER THE PYRENEES TO CALAF. 179 

I was asked what I would ' comidar ' (eat), I 
answered, 6 Conijo, ma non ule.' They were 
therefore fried, and not in oil, and I had the 
first good meat I had had in Spain. I was then 
shown into a bedroom ; a large bed occupied 
the centre of the room ; there was an empty 
truckle-bed against one wall, and a pile of mat- 
tresses against the other, and three chairs ; but 
no table of any sort, or glass, or washing appa- 
ratus. I got a bowl of water to wash in, which 
I placed on a chair, and a towel ; and the girl 
set a long-shaped, awkward oil-lamp, that the 
least thing upset, on the edge of the turn-up 
truckle-bed, wished me good-night, and left me. 
I was sure I should have no good night in such 
a hole. I was wrong. There were no insects, 
and that was the only good night I have yet 
had in Spain. I was fast asleep when Joan 
called me at four next morning ; and still 
hardly awake, I rose and dressed by the dim 
lamp light. I had put all my things of value, my 
watch, the little money-bag I wore round my 
neck, a jet brooch, and an amethyst seal ring, 
all together on the mattress ; alas ! half asleep, 
and half in darkness, I left my amethyst seal ring 
behind. I did not miss it till we were too far 



180 OYER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

on our way to return for it, and had I missed 
it sooner, Joan would not have turned back to 
oblige me. 

Neither of us breakfasted. There was no- 
thing to be had but dry stale bread and vile 
chocolate. When we mounted, that villanous 
wretch had stuffed the sack of straw even 
worse than before. I refused to mount, and in- 
sisted on having some taken out, and the man 
who held my mule, after receiving Joan's per- 
mission, altered it, so that I could sit with 
tolerable comfort, and we rode on till midday, 
when we reached a filthy little village, where 
we stopped at Joan's home. This part of the 
journey was very uninteresting ; the mountains 
had dwindled into long bare ridges or spurs 
of bare broken ground, and the views were 
neither extensive nor beautiful. Joan's house 
was like the other ventas. We ascended by 
the usual stone stairs in the corner of the sta- 
ble, to the first floor, where he and his family 
lived ; and though the rooms were good sized, 
they were filthily dirty. Large heaps of dirty 
linen lay about on the floor in various places in 
both rooms ; a wash-hand basin was not to be 
had, and I washed my hands in a plate of water. 



OVER THE PYRENEES TO CALAF. 181 



There was nothing to eat either ; for myself I 
did not care — I could not have tasted food 
cooked in that filthy hole ; but I wanted meat 
for poor Keeper, who had had a day and a half 
of severe and unusual exercise. Poor little 
beast ! as at Andorre, he had made many futile 
attempts, when foot-sore and weary, to mount 
one of the mules and ride, and a good-natured 
English carter would have let him ride and rest 
for an hour or so, for his weight would not have 
added much to the mule's burden, and except 
the one I rode, they were all returning home 
unladen, but Joan was not good-natured or kind- 
hearted ; and yet this man, who behaved so ill 
to me, was not all bad. My heart melted to- 
wards him when I saw his children clinging 
round him — when I saw him take up and hug 
the little one who was very ill with hooping- 
cough, and when I saw how pleased his wife, 
a fat good-humoured-looking dirty little squaw, 
with more of an English than a Spanish face, 
evidently was by his return. She was near her 
confinement too ; and as I looked round on those 
four half-naked, ragged boys, the wife, and the 
old mother, all of whom had to be maintained 
by his work, I said to myself, if he only behaves 



182 0VEK THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

decently to nie the rest of the way, I will give 
him the extra five francs still. I do not suppose, 
however, that he was peculiarly poor for his 
rank of life. All the Spaniards of the lower 
class that I have seen, certainly in these ventas, 
dress in the same beggarly way ; and the size of 
the house Joan occupied, I should think, be- 
tokened a sufficiency of means. It contained 
large well-proportioned airy rooms, each, ex- 
cept the eating and cooking-room, being divided 
into two halves ; in the front one, was the win- 
dow and door ; in the second, separated from the 
first by an archway hung with curtains, so as to 
darken it, stood the bed. Joan's salon was 
probably twenty feet long by fourteen broad ; 
his sleeping-room, divided as I have described, 
two-thirds this length ; there was another room 
with no windows, behind, opening from the 
front bedroom, and into the salon, so as to 
have air, and there was the usual dark hole, 
which forms a Spanish kitchen. How they see 
to cook in those windowless holes, with no light 
but what comes from the open door, I can't 
think, but e c'est la coutume,' and is better of 
course, in Spanish eyes, than any improvement. 
In due time Joan's dinner was set before him. 



OVER THE PYRENEES TO CALAF. 183 

and taking his youngest child on his knee, he 
sat down to it ; but before he fell to, he invited 
me to eat, offering me fried birds (perrette). 
' Son frito,' he repeated, and seemed vexed I 
would not eat them. I do believe he had got 
them on purpose for me, but after what I had 
seen,* I could not have swallowed them. 

' You will not eat in my house,' he ex- 
claimed. 

' No,' said I, 'I am not hungry, but I will 
drink of your wine, for I am thirsty ;' for I 
did not wish to offend him or pain him. 'You 
know I ate nothing yesterday until night,' 
and I filled my flask and drank. I told him 
of the ring I had left behind me at the 
venta where I had slept, and he wrote down 
that the ring was to be sent to Senora Eyre, 
care of the English Consul at Barcelona, to 
whom I had brought a letter of introduction. 

Then he retired into the bedroom, and I sat 
and wondered when he would come out to 
resume our journey to Calaf ; and tried hard 
to explain to the wife that the juice of pounded 
garlic was a cure for the cough from which the 
poor little baby was choking perpetually. I 

* Hereto hangs a tale I cannot tell to ears polite. 



184 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

found a mortar and an onion, and thus made 
them comprehend me ; but I dare say they did 
not believe me. It is, however, a certain cure, 
and not an unpleasant one. 

The wife of Archdeacon Bentinck, who was 
a great doctress, cured me in three days of 
a second attack of hooping-cough — so severe, 
that I was forced, when the fit seized me, to 
lay hold on bed, chair, or table, to steady 
and support myself — by garlic pounded in a 
mortar with a little water, strained through 
muslin and sweetened with honey. It stood 
on her drawing-room table, and therefore had, 
of course, no objectionable smell, as one would 
have expected ; and whenever I coughed, I 
took a teaspoonful. Half a one at a time is 
enough for a little child. It lulls and quiets, 
and is in fact a strong soporific, but without 
the bad effects of laudanum. 

I wearied at last of doing nothing, and in- 
quired for Joan. ' Lo senor dorme ' was the 
reply. 

Every man is a senor here, as every man in 
France is monsieur. Mr. Ford says the very 
beggars address each other as 'your excellence,' 
and 6 my lord. 5 Certain it is, that there is no 



OVER THE PYRENEES TO CALAP. 185 



respect for rank, or feeling of the difference 
made by education in Spain. 

I have had in my wanderings some laugh- 
able proofs that the Spanish peasant, or bour- 
geois, considers himself anybody's equal, but I 
don't tell them for fear of the critics. 

Here, at Barcelona, I go to eat ices, into 
a splendid cafe, brilliantly lit up, and as richly 
decorated with mirrors, marble pillars, gild- 
ing, and magnificent chandeliers, for ladies 
may go into many of these, and I followed 
some respectable ladies into two, having no 
one to go anywhere with me, since I knew 
no one, the consul being absent with his 
family at the sulphur baths of Fonda, near 
Montserrat : and half the people in them are 
clearly workmen. One may say that in both 
France and Spain the prestige of rank is quite 
done away ; that of money and dress has taken 
its place. 

All this is right ; for God made all men 
of one flesh, throughout the world. It is a 
preparation, I hope, for a better state of things 
than the present, when ' every man shall sit 
under his own fig-tree, and eat bread to the 
full.' I would fain believe with Dr. Gumming, 



186 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

that the millennium draws near, for it is a glo- 
rious hope ; but a state of transition is never a 
quiet or a pleasant state, and it seems to me 
that the nations of Europe, at least, are all in a 
state of transition. The masses are rising to their 
true place and rank, as men and women, but 
have not yet learned how to behave with due 
respect to others as well as themselves ; and are 
not yet sufficiently educated, or refined, for the 
position they claim. A hundred years hence I 
dare say it will not be so. 

Godwin calculated long ago, that all the 
labours performed in the world now, might 
be equally well performed, if every man la- 
boured four hours a day. We are coming, 
I doubt not, to a time when there will be 
no masters, or servants, mistresses, or maids ; 
but each person will look on work as on a 
duty, and wait upon themselves. 

At last, ' lo Senor' woke, came forth, and 
said, 6 We must march.' 

It was about four o'clock. We descended, 
and he led out of the stable one mule laden 
with my baggage — not the one I had ridden 
all the journey, but one whose neck was stream- 
ing with blood, from fly-bites. I objected 



OVER THE PYRENEES TO CALAF. 187 

that it would spoil my clothes. Joan replied, 
6 Ce n'est rien,' and wiped it off with a bit 
of straw. I well knew it was no use object- 
ing, so I comforted myself by thinking it was 
lucky I had put on a dress made on pur- 
pose for such expeditions, instead of the hand- 
some silk-like alpaca given me as a travelling 
dress by a Yorkshire friend, and I mounted. 
The seat was as badly arranged as ever, and I 
asked Joan to alter it. Of course he refused. I 
rode out of the village, and had scarcely got 
out, when I said I could go no further, the 
seat hurt me so. Joan led the mule to an old 
wall. I dismounted, and stood on its top, and he 
pretended, as usual, to alter it, but did nothing. 
An old man came up, and asked what was the 
matter. I explained, and he said it was 4 facile ' 
to alter it, and came to help, but Joan said, ' No ; 
it must remain as it was ; the road was good ; 
there were no precipices now ; the distance was 
short ; it would do.' All these were lies, as I 
soon found. 

The old man went away shaking his head 
at me significantly ; but before I got on again, 
I beat and thumped the sack as well as one 
could flatten one tightly tied, and with cords 



188 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



across, and made it a little better, though only 
a very little. 

The way soon proved as bad, but not so 
interesting, as the march across the Pyrenees 
yesterday morning. We wound up and down 
dry, bare, rugged hills, ridges not high enough 
to be called mountains, and at every step 
the mule took in descending, I was shaken 
a summersault into the air, and flumped down 
on my hard seat by mere personal exertion 
again. We reached a level height after some 
hours of travel. The ground around was 
curiously hollowed by nature into little circu- 
lar hollows, the size of a pond — perhaps they 
had once been ponds — which were highly cul- 
tivated ; the rest of the rugged hill-top was 
bare. From hence I could see the mountains 
I had traversed yesterday morning, rising grand 
and terrace-like, rock above rock, to the sky, 
in the distance ; and a curious octagonal open- 
work tower, which looked Moorish, in the dis- 
tance in front. We had passed many Moorish 
forts and castles on the hills this day. Then 
we descended a little, and then came ascent 
after ascent ; we wound round, as it appeared, 
and up, interminable hills. I, faint and ex- 



0VEE THE PYEENEES TO CALAF. 189 

hausted, Joan evidently out of temper, cutting 
off with his stick all the flowers we passed, 
and stopping every now and then to wipe the 
perspiration from his brow. The strong man 
exhausted, as he had exhausted me, by walking 
a mule's pace the day before. I had no pity 
for him now. I saw his design had been to 
ride himself, and force me to walk to Calaf. 
I determined to keep my seat on the mule as 
long as endurance was possible ; so to his sar- 
castic inquiries every now and then, if 6 9a va 
bien ?' I replied, 4 No, ma non puo marciar hoy.' 
He had pity on himself, however, though he had 
none for me, for he stopped at a village venta 
and had food, while I sat on my mule in the 
stable, where the mistress of the house, and her 
mother, and children were all sitting when we 
arrived. The woman noticed my dress ; no 
doubt she saw it was stained with the mule's 
blood. 

'It is a pity — it is pretty,' said she to 
Joan. 

6 Oh ! ' said I, 4 non costa niente, costa sola- 
mente quattro quarti,' fourpence a yard. 

I would not leave him the hope he had 
damaged my clothes. 



190 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



She came and touched it. 4 It is soi]ed,' said 
she. 

4 It washes, come qua,' said I, touching her 
handkerchief. 

After half an hour's rest, Joan said we must 
4 marciar,' and we went on. On, on, it seemed 
we should never come to that journey's end, 
which he had said was only a little way ; and 
at last he confessed we should not reach it till 
night. 

We had lost sight of the beautiful moun- 
tains behind, and the octagonal tower in the 
front. By-and-by the latter rose again in view 
above the hills ; then we lost sight of it. Then 
it again appeared, and I was sure it was Calaf, 
though Joan said 'no.' At last it rose once 
more, clearly defined this time, on the brow of 
a hill, with houses round it. 

4 E Calaf,' said Joan, and we wound under 
the hill, down a narrow street, and emerged 
opposite the tower, which proved to be that 
of the church, and which I should think must 
be of Moorish construction. 

Calaf is a very singular-looking town, and 
quite Moorish. The houses, built on the hill- 
side, have most of them open galleries in front, 



CALAF. 



191 



with rounded arches ; and these galleries appear 
not balconies, but rooms, upon which the inner 
rooms open. 

We went to a filthy venta. When we entered 
the stable, I was so stiff and exhausted with 
my five hours' ride, that Joan had to lift me 
off the mule. 

4 The senora is fatigued,' said a man. 

4 Yes,' replied the wretch, 4 Senora Andria 
l'avait bien empaquetee with couvertures, but I 
soon took all that away to force her to walk.' 

4 Es clar,' replied the other, approvingly. 

4 You will find you had better have made 
me comfortable, my friend,' said I to myself. 

I went up-stairs and attempted to sup with 
the muleteers and other people who were sup- 
ping there ; but I could eat nothing. I had 
promised Keeper a good supper, as he had had 
a long run over the mountains, and I could get 
nothing for him at Joan's ; and I asked for meat 
for him. ' Ora, ora,' was of course the reply, 
and the hostess bustled about, serving her 
guests. 

4 And now pour les cotelettes,' said one of 
the men, a Frenchman, to the hostess. 

She went into the kitchen, and returned 



192 0VEE THE PFEENEES INTO SPAIN. 

laughing. 6 Faith,' says she, ' el perro has eaten 
them all up ; there is not one left ! ' 

The whole party took their disappointment 
very good-humouredly. 

6 II a bon appetit ce chien,' said the French- 
man, laughing loudly, and a shout of laughter 
echoed round the table ; they seemed to think 
it a very good joke. 

' But I have no more cotelettes to fry,' said 
the hostess, half ruefully, half merrily. 6 Mes- 
sieurs, you will lose your suppers/ 

6 1 promised him a good supper,' said I ; 6 he 
has had nothing all day, though he has been 
running after the mules since four this morn- 
ing. You should not have kept him so long 
waiting, and then he would not have helped 
himself ; but never mind, I will pay for all he 
has eaten, and you can send out for more meat.' 

4 Ah ! yes ! that is it,' said the guests. 

I suppose she did so, for in about half an 
hour a fresh dish of cotelettes made their 
appearance, and all the bones were handed 
over by each man in turn to Mr. Keeper, who 
seemed to have risen ten per cent, in their 
estimation, for his promptitude in taking care 
of himself. 



CALAF. 



193 



It was genuine ' Espanolismo ;' they sympa- 
thised with, and approved it. 

When supper was over, I asked the French- 
man to be good enough to aid me in settling 
with my guide ; he assented willingly. 

I turned to the treacherous Joan : ' What 
sums have you paid for me, at the different 
ventas, where we stayed ? ' 

' Four francs.' 

6 You agreed with Senor Federigo to bring 
me to Calaf for fifteen francs ? ' 
'Yes.' 

6 Fifteen and four make nineteen ; you will 
lose a franc by exchange ; there is a Napoleon 
of twenty francs. Had you made my seat on 
the mule comfortable, I should have given 
you five francs more. No one ever loses by 
civility to an English person. If an English 
man or woman meets kindness in travelling, 
and has not means to repay it at the time, they 
will send a present months afterwards. The 
English never forget a kindness ; but you did 
all you could to make me suffer, though you 
knew I had hurt my back by a fall in England. 
You compelled me to walk above ten miles 
across a steep mountain, by stuffing the sack of 



194 OVEK THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

straw so hard that I could not sit on it ; and 
even after you had seen me faint in consequence 
of that walk, you did the same thing to force 
me to walk to Calaf again to-day. Therefore, 
I give you no present, as I intended.' 

6 C'est vrai ! ' exclaimed the Frenchman, 4 Ma- 
dame is right ; the English always give more 
than they have promised.' And he translated 
the whole into Catalonian to Joan. 

6 1 have brought her from the Seu,' said he, 
reproachfully, 6 for quinze francs.' 

6 You bargained to do so, with Senor Federigo ; 
I had nothing to do with making the bargain,' 
said I, 4 and you promised him to take every 
possible care of me. You told him I should 
be " bien avec vous ;" instead, you did all that 
depended on you, to make me suffer. I will 
not reward you.' 

6 C'est juste ! ' exclaimed the Frenchman ; and 
even the Spaniards all joined in reprobating 
Joan's behaviour. Finding himself in a minor- 
ity, he said nothing more, but I dare say he 
consoled himself by the thought he should get 
the amethyst signet ring which I had left behind 
me when, half asleep, I dressed that morning 
by the dim light of an oil-lamp that was all but 



CALAF. 195 

extinguished, and which he had promised to 
procure for me, and leave at the British Con- 
sulate on his next journey to Barcelona. At 
all events, I never heard of him or the ring 
a^ain. 



o 2 



196 OYER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



CHAPTEE VII. 

CALAF TO BARCELONA. 

Very tired, I followed my hostess to my bed- 
room, where, of course, I had no sleep from 
vermin. I was up by six next morning, and 
if I had thought the kitchen dirty and com- 
fortless the night before, ten times more dirty 
and comfortless did it seem by the bright light 
of a summer morning. The walls were white- 
washed, as was the ceiling, whose beams as 
well as a border round a cupboard in the 
wall, were coloured a deep lapis lazuli blue, 
a common decoration in wayside inns in 
Spain. As to the floors, the seats, the plate- 
rack, and the shelves and glasses, no words of 
mine can do justice to their filth. How was I 
to swallow food in such a place ? Yet these 



CALAF TO BAKCELONA. 



197 



people were not poor ; they occupied a large 
house ; the principal room, and all the others 
that I entered, except the kitchen behind, 
which was dark as usual — I presume Spaniards 
think cooking is like the growing of vegetables, 
and goes on best in the dark — were large, 
light, well- ventilated apartments, with windows 
as large as is usual in good houses in either 
England, or France, and iron balconies to each. 
It only needed a little paper, paint, and cleanli- 
ness, to have made it a very comfortable abode 
for the passing stranger. No one was up but 
an old woman. Could I have some chocolate ? 
— that is always to be had in Spain, and it is 
generally very good, only they make it into a 
thick paste. 6 Ora, ora,' was of course the an- 
swer, 6 when the mistress comes.' I waited hours, 
and no mistress came. I was fainting for food. 
At last the old woman went to fetch her 
daughter ; some chocolate was brought forth, 
and I washed a cup and saucer for myself 
while it was making, and a glass to hold water 
to dilute it. The only clean thing in the house 
was the water-jar ; but, alas ! the water was 
green-looking and brackish, as is most of the 
water in these burnt-up sierras. When the 



198 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

chocolate came, it was so coarse and oily as to 
be undrinkable, even when diluted. Two kinds 
of bread — one something like our English 
frying-pan cake — were laid on the dirty table 
before me, with a half-wiped knife. I first 
cleaned the knife, and then cut some of the 
cake, which was very good, to put in my bag 
and eat on my journey ; I was so sickened by 
the dirt of everything, I could not eat then. 
But both the women were wonderfully civil. 
Instead of being angry with me for my squeam- 
ishness, as I feared they would, they commise- 
rated me. ' La povera Senora ! ' said my hostess, 
4 that bad muleteer has ill-treated her and made 
her ill, and we have nothing to give her ; we 
cannot make one like her comfortable ; this is a 
poor place. Would the Senora like an egg, or 
meat — anything that we have ? ' I thanked 
her, and by-and-by set off to the railway 
station, accompanied by her little maid, carry- 
ing my bag, while she herself took my bonnet- 
box, where she would not leave me until I had 
got my ticket and entered the waiting-room, 
where continental-fashion travellers are im- 
prisoned until the train starts ; and while I 
was awaiting my turn to get my ticket, I heard 



CALAF TO BARCELONA. 



199 



her tell every one the history of e la povera 
Senora,' and how ill that vile man, Joan, had 
treated her. She seemed as if she could not get 
it out of her head. 

If I could have got my breakfast at once, I 
hoped to have had time to see something of 
the church and town of Calaf, which stands 
very picturesquely on the brow of a hill, but I 
was kept waiting nearly two hours for it ; every 
minute told, Spanish fashion, that I should 
have it directly — in a moment — and I felt so 
sick and faint from fatigue and want of sleep, I 
dared not go out without having takeo some- 
thing. I saw afterwards others of these Moorish- 
looking churches, with an octagonal or hexa- 
gonal cupola of slender pillars terminating their 
tall towers. They please me very much, both 
from their picturesqueness and their, to me, 
novel construction. I entered the railway train, 
taking a second-class seat. The carriage was 
full of respectably- dressed men and women. 
No one said a word to me or misused me, but 
I doubt whether any of the peasants whom I 
afterwards travelled with, would have evinced 
so little respect for female presence or decency 
as one of these well-dressed men did. The 



200 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



more I see of Spanish men and Spanish charac- 
ter, the more I hate them. They are brutalised 
beyond description. 

In about three hours, after passing through 
a country which was not particularly inte- 
resting, except for a very lofty, picturesque 
mountain, of great size, and cleft on one side 
into seven or eight jagged pinnacles, which 
none of my travelling companions could tell 
me the name of, and which I could not ascer- 
tain for myself, because no mountains are laid 
down in the map belonging to Murray's 1 Guide 
Book,' I reached Barcelona.* 

Barcelona is a large, clean, and handsome 
city, and very foreign looking. My impressions 
as I drove through it in the omnibus to the 
Hotel del Falcone — I had asked to be taken to 
a French hotel, because I could not eat the 
Spanish cookery — were pleasurable ; it seemed 

* I tried on reaching Barcelona to get a good map of the 
Spanish Pyrenees, bnt was unable to do so. I was told that 
the mountains of Spain were not laid down in any map. I saw 
a good map of them afterwards in the inn at Manresa, and 
would gladly have purchased it if I could. The host told me 
he had bought it of an itinerant Frenchman, and it was drawn 
by a Frenchman. Nearly everything that is well done in 
Spain, from railways and steamers to maps, is the work of ' the 
foreigner.' 



BARCELONA. 



201 



so clean, bright, and gay-looking. We passed 
a small square, full of trees and flowers ; a 
handsome bank ; and then turned into the 
Eambla, a street like one of the boulevards of 
Paris, with rows of trees, and chairs, and seats 
under them in the middle, and on either side a 
carriage road and a pavement for foot passen- 
gers, backed by a row of gay shops. I was 
not, however, more favourably impressed by 
the Spanish character than before, when the 
conductor, having chosen to pass El Falcone, 
though I had perpetually asked him if we were 
near it, set me and my baggage down in the 
middle of the road, and, declaring the omnibus 
was going further, called a man to carry my 
baggage, and take me back almost half the 
length of the Eambla to the Falcone. The man 
had already a load of three or four cane chairs, 
which he was carrying somewhere or other, but 
my baggage being light as well as the chairs, 
he had no difficulty in carrying both. I had 
on the large Leghorn hat I had worn to protect 
me from the sun in travelling, and the gown in 
which I had ridden the mules from the Seu 
d'Urgel to Calaf, stained by their blood from 
the stings of the flies, for I had been too ill that 



202 OYER THE PYRENEES IXTO SPAIN. 

morning to unpack my bag, as it required some 
strength to force all my kit into so small a 
compass ; and I had intended to drive straight 
to an hotel, change my clothes, and enjoy the 
luxury of a bath, before I showed myself in the 
streets of Barcelona. It was, therefore, no 
small annoyance to me when thus travel-stained, 
and covered with dust, as all travellers, even by 
railroad, must be in arid and dusty Spain; I 
had to walk along so public a place as the 
Eambla, and my annoyance was not lessened 
by cries of 6 Mira ! mira ! una Inglese ! ' 6 No, 
es una Francesa ! ' 4 Parisi ! Parisi ! ' &c. &c. 
Now, bad as my appearance was, there was 
nothing in it to justify this hooting and scream- 
ing ; the stains of blood had turned brown, and 
I merely had on a dark purple gown, which 
was rather tumbled and soiled about the skirt, 
Neither in Paris, or London, or any civilised 
community, would it have attracted any notice ; 
but the Spaniards are only half civilised, and 
in Spain, as in Andorre, every stranger is a sub- 
ject for insult and ridicule. 

The man put down my things, and the chairs 
too, at the Falcone, and ran away as hard as he 



BAKCELOXA. 



203 



could, not waiting to be paid ; and I asked for a 
room. 

4 Are these yours also ? ' said the astonished 
waiter, pointing to the chairs, as he shouldered 
my bag. 

4 Certainly not,' said I ; 6 1 know nothing 
about them/ 

He showed me into a clean-looking bed- 
room, and supplied me with water, and I was 
thankful to bathe, and change my travel-soiled 
garments, and then to descend with Keeper to 
the salon and have some food ; after which we 
started to explore the town. 

6 The Eambla,' says Mr. Ford, 6 was once a 
streamlet, La Eiera den Malla, of the Mall, 
which bounded the western wall of Barcelona ; 
it is now a gay public walk, with handsome 
shops on either side, and is, I should think, 
near two miles long. Here are the principal 
hotels — that of Las Cuatros Naciones, the 
Fonda del Grande Oriente, and El Falcone. 
Here also are the principal theatre, the Liceo, 
the post-office, the diligence-office, the bureau 
for passports, the best shops, and most gape- 
seed.' That gape-seed seems to me so charming 



204 OYER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

a word, so expressive of the curious gaping, 
staring traveller, expecting to find a lion at 
every corner of a new city, that I could not 
resist quoting this passage from Mr. Ford's ex- 
cellent and entertaining 6 Guide to Spain.' * We 
went also to the Plateria, as Mr. Ford recom- 
mends, to look at the jewellery. The Plateria is 
pre-eminently the jewellers' street, though there 
are, shops of other kinds, and, as he says, 'many 
of the ornaments exhibited in the windows are 
of very beautiful workmanship, and the large 
earrings of rubies, emeralds, or a fire-coloured 
stone, like a cross between a ruby and a cor- 
nelian, and set chiefly in silver ; are all of 
elegant antique form.' Some of them are as 
long as my forefinger, and must be terrifically 
heavy to wear ; but the smaller ones — stone 
pendants of various size and form, hanging one 
from the other so as to form a pattern — are very 
lovely. By the way, this antique mode of 
setting gems is now very fashionable. I had 

* Ask for Ford's ' Murray's Handbooks for Spain,' The 
introduction of railways have necessarily made many changes 
in the routes to different places, so that a revision of it would 
be desirable. Many of the hotels named also, especially one at 
Granada, no longer exist. But his pictures of Spanish manners 
and character are to the life, and the amazing mass of informa- 
tion condensed into those two volumes is something wonderful. 



BARCELONA. 



205 



seen many like the smaller earrings in the 
boulevards of Paris before I saw Barcelona. 

Our sight-seeing — or rather mine — was, how- 
ever, very soon brought to a disagreeable end. 
First, one or two children collected round me 
as I stood and gazed at the jewellers' pretty 
wares ; then more joined them ; men and wo- 
men soon added to the crowd that now sur- 
rounded me, screaming out, 6 Parisi ! ' ' No, es 
Inglese ! ' 4 No, Francese ! ' I spoke to them, 
and remonstrated as well as I could, seeing 
that the little Spanish I knew was Castilian, 
while here in Barcelona the people speak Cata- 
lan, which is very different. I had to take 
refuge in a shop, whose owners were very civil 
to me, and did what they could to disperse 
the hooting rabble at the door, but with no 
avail ; there is no respect for rank in Spain, 
and the respectable classes have no weight with 
the crowd. There was nothing peculiar or 
conspicuous in my dress. I had laid aside my 
hat, finding that though a fat old woman of 
fifty may wear a pork-pie or a small round or 
oval hat, garnished with a red upright plume, 
from which depends another of emerald green, 
while, above all, are a quantity of sprays, or a 



206 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



cockade of slender filaments tipped with steel, 
over her rubicund moon-like visage, if she be 
Spanish ; (I have seen Spanish women of that 
age and appearance wearing such hats), or a 
gown of deep red purple, trimmed with flounces 
and robings of green and black plaid, or an 
apple-green dress, trimmed with sky-blue : (I 
have seen these also), a stranger, quietly dressed 
in a sober black gown, made as gowns are 
worn in Paris, and looped up as they are looped 
up in Paris, over a black silk petticoat ; the rest 
of whose costume consists of an ordinary white 
straw bonnet trimmed with grey or black, and 
a black lace shawl ; cannot walk the streets of 
Spanish towns, either alone or with a guide, 
because her dress and maintien point her out as 
a stranger. The Spanish women in general 
wear nothing on their heads but perhaps a lace 
veil, and altogether dress for the street, as other 
women in other countries dress for a private 
party or a ball. They have, of course, a right 
to dress as they please, but until Spaniards 
allow a well-conducted, modest, quietly-dressed 
woman in black, to walk their streets and pa- 
rades without being mobbed, they cannot lay 
claim to being a civilised nation. 



BARCELONA. 



207 



Nobody even looked at me in Paris, or in 
any town in France, when I wore the same 
dress in which I was mobbed in Spain. 

A sergent de ville passed, and he was ap- 
pealed to. He shrugged his shoulders, and 
threw his arms up into the air, pathetically, 
' What could he do ? It was not his place to 
interfere.' c Whose is it, then ? ' I asked, indig- 
nantly. 'I am a writer ; I will tell the whole 
world, in the book I am going to write on Spain, 
how uncivilised the Spaniards are.' At length 
we worked him up to the pitch of speaking to 
the rabble, and at last they dispersed. 

Tired and hungry, I turned down the street 
leading to the Eambla, and entering a baker's 
shop, asked for a roll and sat down to eat it. 
There could hardly have been greater excite- 
ment if the hippopotamus from the Kegent's 
Park Zoological Gardens had walked in and 
seated himself in a chair to eat, and repose him- 
self. A second mob collected round the open 
door ; they put their heads within it, and stared 
me out of countenance ; while those who were 
not so fortunate as to get near the door, leaned 
eagerly over the others' shoulders, or flattened 
their noses against the window-panes, all of 



208 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

them screaming, hooting, and making the rudest 
observations. The mistress of the shop tried in 
vain to send them away. I determined to weary 
them out, and stayed half an hour in the 
shop, and at last slowly and reluctantly they 
dispersed. Is this civilisation? The self-love 
of the Spaniard, his and her utter contempt for 
everything that is not Spanish, or that they with 
their small experience, who never leave Spain, 
have for everything new to them, must be seen 
and felt to be described. Thus, I had a water- 
proof cloak with me, and when travelling on a 
very cold day, I drew the hood over my bonnet 
to protect my neck from the currents of air that 
came from the open windows of the railway 
carriage, men and women elevated their eye- 
brows, shrugged their shoulders, winked at each 
other, sneered, and by every means in their 
power indicated to me their profound contempt 
for nry habiliment. 

' C'est la mode ? ' asked one or two, deri- 
sively. 

4 Si,' answered I, £ k Paris et a Londres.' 

In fact, hoods are not only made to travelling 
cloaks in Paris, but affixed to the corsage a 
basque of travelling or autumn dresses in Paris. 



BARCELONA. 



209 



But it does not signify how expensive, pretty, 
fashionable, or convenient a thing is, if it has 
not yet made its way into Spain ; Spanish self- 
love and vanity, which they style patriotismo, 
and Espanolismo, hoots at it. Mr. Ford, who 
lived years among them, though as a man he 
was not exposed to the hooting rabble whose 
cowardice makes them take pleasure in an- 
noying and harassing an unprotected female 
stranger, quietly walking through their towns ; 
mentions numberless instances of their hatred 
of all innovations. For instance, he narrates 
that when it was proposed to light the streets 
with gas, the olive growers protested against 
' this thing of the foreigner.' ' Nosotros,' we 
ourselves, is for ever in their mouths, and no 
foreigner can hope for much comfort or kind- 
ness in Spain, till he or she can speak the 
language fluently, has adopted all Spanish cus- 
toms, however absurd or even dangerous, and 
has, in short, become ' uno de nosotros,' one of 
ourselves. 

Most of the ladies of Barcelona, and all 
Spanish towns I visited, wear nothing on their 
heads to protect them from the scorching sun 
of Spain ; for even when the veil and the black 

p 



210 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

silk scarf are worn, the first is too thin to be of 
any use ; and the second is pinned over the 
other just at the division of the hair behind, so 
as to leave the upper part of the head where 
the suture occurs, which is the tender part, per- 
fectly exposed. 

At Bagneres de Bigorre, where the sun has 
far less power than in Spain, the English gen- 
tlemen, and often the ladies too, wore white 
muslin, or handkerchiefs tied round their hats, 
to protect them from it ; and yet, with all these 
precautions, cases of sun-stroke occurred. One 
happened while I was there. How is it possible 
then for a traveller to lay aside the bonnet she 
has been accustomed to all her life, and walk 
about with nothing on her head but a veil, like 
one of 6 nosotros.' It is said the Spanish ladies 
never go out except in the evening. This may 
be true as a rule, but the exceptions are and 
must be numberless. I have met them on the 
Eambla, in the market-place, at the baths, and 
in shops, in all the fiercest glare of a noonday 
sun, with nothing on their heads, or only a 
veil. Another unpardonable crime I committed, 
was to carry an umbrella to shade my head from 
the fervid heat that seemed to scorch my very 



BARCELONA. 



211 



brain. It was a brown alpaca, not lined or 
covered with white, such as one may safely 
carry about among the civilised Bagnerais, or 
in any part of France or Germany, so that there 
was nothing peculiar in it ; and it was new. 
Now Spanish ladies rarely even carry a parasol ; 
they hold up their fans to shade their faces from 
the sun, and being used to it from birth, suffer 
as little from the fervid heat, as crickets on the 
hearth from the fire. Then, my gown was 
looped up in festoons, so as to keep it out of 
the mud, and show the black skirt beneath, as 
is the mode in Paris, where a training dress is 
never seen in the streets. I would have let it 
down, and bought a parasol, in order to conform 
as much as I could to Spanish ideas, if I could ; 
but I had already as much as I could carry in 
travelling, with my bag, my umbrella, and 
Keeper, whom it was necessary to lead by a 
chain, in going to or from railway stations, and, 
as the reader knows, I had no trunk to put a 
parasol in ; while with regard to the dress, a 
gown that trains in the dirt takes an hour's 
brushing and washing every morning, besides 
requiring reparation, and new trimming every 
fortnight, or oftener. I had my dog to brush 



212 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN". 

to keep him free from fleas, to walk about and 
see as much of the place I was in as possible, 
and to write my journal ; to say nothing of 
mending my stockings, and keeping my ward- 
robe in general in repair, and trying to learn a 
little more Spanish. How could I find time to 
attend to robes a queue ? Once, when I was 
annoyed by the mob, I entered a shop for 
refuge, and bitterly did I complain of Spanish 
rudeness. 6 Mais vous avez quelque chose de 
different des autres ? ' said the master, with true 
Espanolismo^ anxious to excuse his country- 
folk ; touching my sleeve, and looking at my 
looped- up black skirt. I had on a brown 
holland Garibaldi trimmed with white braid, 
such as are fashionable in the extreme for 
morning costume in Paris, which I had just 
quitted ; and over it a black merino jacket made 
in France ! And Garibaldis are as much worn 
in Spain as in France ! 

I went several times to some baths, down a 
narrow passage near the post-ofhce, on the 
Eambla. They were excellent ; large, of white 
marble, with a sloping slab to support the 
shoulders, two cocks, one supplying hot, the 
other cold water, and a large piece of cork, a 



BARCELONA. 



213 



better thing than a carpet, to stand on when 
one got out. The price was a franc and a half. 
The market of Barcelona is large and com- 
modious, but not good. The meat is all coarse 
and tough, and the fowls yellow and skinny ; 
nor, though a sea-port, is there, so far as I saw, 
a good supply of fish. I saw a great deal of 
unsavoury-smelling salt fish there, but little fresh. 
There were plenty of vegetables, but the fruit 
was bad and dear ; and, strange to say, in this 
hot clime, all fruit is more backward than in 
France. I have often eaten melons and grapes 
in July, in France ; while yellow peaches, early 
apples, and plums are plentiful. 

In Barcelona all the fruit seems to come from 
a great distance, and it is my firm conviction, 
the bruised and dear yellow peaches come from 
my beloved French Pyrenees. The plums are 
what we in England should hardly deign to 
make pies of, — worse flavoured than the wild 
bullace ; sour, insipid, coarse, oval-shaped, red- 
dish, or yellow plums ; the apples are perfectly 
tasteless, and the pears are not half so good as 
a turnip, being juiceless and woolly. Neither 
are the markets arranged with the artistic 
eye as to effect, which distinguishes a French 



214 OYER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

market, where rich colour contrasts with rich 
colour, so that a painter may stand and gaze 
well pleased on a fruit, and vegetable, and flower 
stall ; for few of the two first are undecorated 
by a bouquet or two, skilfully disposed where it 
will show to the best advantage. Flowers are 
very dear and rare in Spain, on account of the 
dryness of the soil. I was surprised to see so 
few displayed for sale, and those few of very 
common kinds. In fact, the Spaniards take 
small trouble about anything. If plants will 
thrive by being just stuck in the ground, and 
left there, well and good ; but to cultivate any- 
thing to perfection, requires an effort too great 
for Spanish indolence. 

There is a pleasant walk, bounded by a wall, 
which protects it from the sea ; which you reach 
by ascending a handsome flight of stone steps 
at the lower end of the Eambla. From hence 
you have a delightful sea view : a bright blue 
sea into which run two sloping hills on either 
side the town, and where innumerable craft of 
all kinds, and all nations ride at anchor, or float 
gracefully over the smooth blue waters, flecked 
with white foam, that sparkles in the sunshine. 

The British squadron was there during my 



BAKCELONA. 



215 



stay, and it warmed my heart to see the Eng- 
lish flag floating at the mast-heads of the admi- 
ral's ship, and English blue jackets, walking 
about the streets, and to hear my mother tongue 
spoken by the officers and cadets, who dined at 
the same restaurants as I latterly did. For I 
found the Falcone, though clean in the apart- 
ments, so noisy and so unfit for a lady in other 
unmentionable respects, that I soon left it for 
the Fonda del Oriente, which, though very dear, 
is comfortable, and hither every day some of 
them came to dine. This fleet was a great 
object of admiration, and, I believe, envy to the 
Spaniards. I had heard that there was scarcely 
a ragamuffin in Barcelona who did not go to see 
it, and that nothing could exceed the courtesy 
my countrymen showed to all their visitors, 
from the highest to the lowest, and I thought 
the Barcelonese might learn from the English a 
lesson of hospitality to strangers, instead of 
mobbing them in the streets. I, also, should 
have liked much to have visited it, and to have 
seen a man-of-war manned with her full com- 
plement of men, but I had no one to go with ; 
and I verily believe I was the only living soul 
in Barcelona, exclusive of beggars, sick persons, 



216 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



and soldiers, who cannot do as they please ; 
who did not visit it. 

From this terraced walk, one descends by 
stone steps to a walk with handsome houses on 
either side, and two rows of trees with stone 
seats under them in the middle. This part of 
Barcelona is very foreign looking. Most of the 
houses fronting the sea have green Venetian 
persiennes, or, as we call them, Venetian blinds, 
in a frame. Some are decorated with busts 
on the top of the front. A few have a kind 
of fresco design in grey and white on parts 
of the wall ; and some of the houses round 
one small plaza full of flowering shrubs, had 
landscapes painted on the walls facing the 
garden. 

Below this avenue is another, and between 
them a sort of square, where are the Queen's 
palace, the Palais de Justice, and some other 
handsome public buildings ; while the cemetery 
and chapel rise prettily among the trees in the 
distance. This second avenue is of great length, 
and decorated with stone seats and marble 
fountains, overgrown with ferns and weeds ; and 
pieces of sculpture as little worthy the name as 
similar works of art in London. To the right 



BARCELONA. 



217 



is a small public garden, 6 laid out,' says Mr. 
Ford, 'in 1816 by Castanos, with pepper-trees, 
flower-beds, statues, ponds with swans, and 
aviaries.' It is called the Jardin del General. 
But the Spaniards neglect everything ; the walks 
are mossy, damp, and grass-grown ; the box 
borders undipped ; and the birdless aviaries 
fast falling to pieces, though there are yet one 
or two wretched swans near the grass-green 
ponds. I wonder how they manage to exist 
in that dark green water. A few geraniums, 
fuchsias, and dahlias are stuck carelessly into 
the beds ; but the real charm of the place 
are the magnificent oleander- trees, as tall as 
a young apple-tree, and with stems as thick as 
a man's arm, covered with a profusion of double 
deep- coloured pink flowers. Here also, for the 
first time, I saw standard oranges, undipped 
and unshorn of their luxuriant beauty, though 
not much taller or bigger than the oleanders. 
Very beautiful are their graceful branches of 
glossy dark-green leaves, bearing at once both 
snowy blossom and golden-hued fruit. Very 
different indeed from the clipped, stunted, de- 
formed, hideous things in tubs, in front of the 
royal palaces of the Tuileries and Coblentz. 



218 OYER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

How can man be so utterly tasteless as to 
deform what God has made so exquisitely per- 
fect and graceful ; to clip the bending boughs 
of a tree, the tail and ears of a dog, or, as is 
common in Spain, the graceful pliant tails of 
the feline race? I am sure all this clipping, 
especially of animals, which is cruel ; is an 
invention of Satan's. God made everything 
perfect and beautiful. The enemy of man is 
always seeking to degrade beauty into ugliness, 
and virtue into vice. No wonder the old mis- 
sals painted the author of evil with tail, horns, 
and hoof, for one can hardly fancy the spirit 
who delights in devastation other than hideous ; 
though, were I a painter, I should rather paint 
the fallen angel with a sort of lurid baleful 
beauty, than the grotesque form given to him 
by our forefathers. 

Only twice did I venture to walk in this 
avenue. It is the resort of the lower class 
especially; and while on the Eambla, I met 
little annoyance ; here, and in the older parts of 
the town, as in the Plateria, I could not go 
without exposing myself to the yells and hoot- 
ing of a half-savage rabble. 



BARCELONA. 



219 



The Catalans — Barcelona is in the province 
of Catalonia — are a cowardly race, without any 
of that true manliness which makes a brave 
man always tender and respectful to a woman, 
simply as a woman ; regardless of liking or age. 
Witness their conduct to the aged mother of 
Cabreras. See Mr. Ford. 'On February 16, 1836, 
the Christinist General Nogueras, Mina readily 
consenting, put to death in cold blood the old 
mother of Cabreras, to avenge his defeat by 
her son. The old lady died like a man, and 
was a true daughter of the former amazons of 
Tortosa, and mother to brave sons. This un- 
manly act was received with shouts of disgust 
in England, and of applause in Spain. Nogueras, 
to quiet any representations, was disgraced pro 
forma ; but the act was lauded by the press of 
Zaragozza, whose national guard petitioned to 
have the " prudent and vigorous officer " rein- 
stated in command, which he was. In 1843 he 
was the favourite popular candidate for the 
representation of Madrid, the capital ; and he 
would well and truly have represented the ma- 
jority of his constituents ; and the fond memory 
of this exploit continues to give such satisfaction 



220 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



to the Catalans, that Nogueras was elected in 
1851 member for Fraga.' (Ford's 4 Murray's 
Handbook for Spain.') 

Cruelty seems an inherent vice of the Spanish 
character. Miramon, during the Mexican re- 
volution, flogged a woman to death, for not 
betraying her husband, who had hidden himself 
to escape the conscription. Under the torture, 
she was seized by the pangs of childbirth, and 
the demon — true son of Satan — ordered the 
executioners to lash on till she dropped down 
dead. One can hardly help feeling fiendish 
oneself, when one thinks of such horrors, and 
wishing him to suffer at least as cruel a torture 
himself. I never could bear to reflect that an 
English vessel gave this wretch shelter, when 
he had to fly from an oppressed and incensed 
country. And their people ask what good the 
French troops do in Mexico ? Why, they help 
to humanise the Spaniards. 

Some of the old streets of Barcelona are very 
curious. There is one on the left side of the 
Eambla, not far from the Fonda del Oriente, 
many of whose houses are most quaintly de- 
corated. Some have white diamonds painted 
on the walls, on a grey ground ; others different 



BARCELONA. 



221 



kinds of patterns. The most diverting is one 
whose windowless end faces you as you go down 
the street. It has a series of sketches, as it 
were, of life size, one above the other. There 
is a most melancholy shepherd in the same 
curly wig, long-waisted coat, and flapped waist- 
coat, knee breeches, stockings, and buckled 
shoes, that one sees in Dresden China, or 
carved in stone and painted, by the garden- 
ponds of old manor houses. There is one just 
like him in Mr. Swann's garden at Askham Hall, 
leaning pensively over the pond, and leering at 
Phyllis opposite. But this Spanish shepherd, 
who, leaning on his crook, is evidently regardless 
of his sheep feeding around him, is meant for 
Jacob, I feel certain, notwithstanding the ana- 
chronism of his dress ; for the landscape above, 
clearly represents Eebecca in an oriental dress 
and turban, watering the camels. 

I suppose the present possession of Palestine 
by the infidel, suggested to the bigoted Spaniard 
the third picture, of a Mahometan holding out 
a pipe to a dog, who is begging for it, on 
his hind legs, as eagerly as if it were a bone. 
6 Dog of a Mahometan ' was doubtless in his 
thoughts. Again, when I went to the banker. 



222 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



M. Serras, in another street on the other side 
the Eambla, I noticed, while sitting in his 
counting-house, that the upper half of the dead 
wall of a house opposite, was painted go imitate 
a blue sky with white fleecy clouds. I have 
seen this same blue sky have a good effect from 
a distance ; when painted on a garden wall, with 
a mass of trees and flowers in front. 

All southern nations delight in sitting at 
their open doorways. To see, and be seen, is to 
them elixir vita, a necessary of life as great as 
the air they breathe. I saw numbers of Spanish 
bourgeoises, and workwomen busy at their 
needle, with little round or square work-tables 
before them. But in foreign countries the com- 
monest thing is different from what we have at 
home, and different in every country. These 
tables had all a raised, stuffed, border, or pin- 
cushion all round them like a frame, and in the 
low well below, thus formed ; lay their tape, 
scissors, cottons, &c. It seemed a very con- 
venient plan, as the work could be pinned 
across the table, and held much firmer and 
flatter than on one of our common lead or 
screw pin-cushions, or when pinned to the knee. 
The Spanish women, however, do not rival the 



BARCELONA. 



223 



French women in the exquisite neatness of their 
needlework. It is rather basted together, like 
the ready-made linen in London ; and I saw 
little embroidery, and most of what I did see, 
exhibited in the shops, was very badly done. 
As to the milliners' shops, the bonnets were 
rightful — absolute caricatures ! I wanted a 
dean blonde bonnet-cap, but perambulated the 
town seeking one in vain. I suppose I must 
wait till I get to Madrid. I also wanted shoes 
or boots, having walked till the sole of my foot 
was on the ground in the long mountain walk 
the wicked muleteer forced me to take ; and, 
what with the fatigue of that mountain journey, 
and my sufferings from want of food and sleep- 
lessness in Andorre and at the Seu d'Urgel, 
from bugs and fleas, and, since I came here, 
from musquitoes, my feet are so swollen I can- 
not get on any shoes or boots I have. I bought 
a pair of canvas shoes with hempen soles, such 
as the working-class wear here, the day I 
arrived, and, were it not for the look, I would 
gladly always wear them. How delightful, in 
this hot climate, to have no leather to draw 
one's feet and produce corns ! But as it was 
unpatrician, I hunted all Barcelona for shoes or 



224 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



boots to fit me in vain. ' The Spanish women,' 
says Mr. Ford, ' have a peculiar-shaped foot ' — 
c II faut souffrir pour etre belie,' and, as they 
pinch the foot into a very small compass in 
front, it naturally swells behind ; but they 
admire this, and laugh at the French foot which 
we think pretty, calling it fi un pied sec,' i.e. e a 
bony foot ; ' another proof of Spanish vanity, for 
the French have generally remarkably beauti- 
fully-formed feet. Every shoe and boot that 
was long enough and large enough for my foot, 
was so wide behind, I could not keep it on, and 
at last the sheer necessity of having something 
to wear, forced me to buy a pair of women's 
yellow Cordovan boots, of which I saw great 
numbers in the windows, and which have this 
vear been la mode in France at the sea-side ; 
which wrinkled round my ankles like the yellow 
boots worn by travelling comedians, when they 
are to act brigands or cavaliers. Being 6 cosa 
d'Espagna,' and made by 'Nosotros,' I hoped 
they would escape notice, and not bring me 
into more trouble. 

I went, of course, to see the churches of Bar- 
celona. One, the cathedral, is very fine. I 
walked through its cool cloisters, with tombs 



BARCELONA. 



225 



and altars all painted and gilded, and admired 
a pretty little square garden of flowers and 
orange-trees, whose verdure relieved their gloom, 
and then into the interior ; but I do not under- 
stand church architecture, and cannot, there- 
fore, give any detailed account of it. Santa 
Maria del Mar, somewhat resembling the cathe- 
dral in style, is also a fine edifice. Those that 
were of the rectangular form, with square 
windows and heavy floral ornaments over them, 
I thought especially ugly. 



Q 



226 



OVEE THE PYKENEES INTO SPAIN. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

BARCELONA TO MANRESA AND CARD ON A. 



I wished to visit the salt-mines of Cardona. 
Ever since I read Madame de Genlis' 6 Alphonse 
et Thelismar,' I had been dying to see a salt- 
mine, and I hoped change of air might do me 
good, for I was really ill from want of rest at 
night ; so I took a ticket to Manresa. The 
road is most picturesque and beautiful. All the 
outskirts of Barcelona are pretty, as it lies 
girdled on three sides by a range of low blue 
hills, in front of which wave graceful trees, 
while bamboos and aloes hedge in the dry, 
Spanish, brown-looking fields. The bamboos 
are not the graceful, willowy shrub I expected. 
They are immensely tall reeds, but they look 
well in the distance, interspersed with grey 
willows, alders, scrubby oaks, and firs, and, 
with the aloes, give an oriental cast to the land- 



BAECELONA TO MANEESA AND CAEDONA. 227 

scape. As one recedes from Barcelona, the 
views become wilder and bolder ; the low hills 
stretch into rocky slopes, with deep, wide 
ravines, planted with vines or olive-trees, and 
mountain peaks rising above them, until at last 
one's eye rests upon a wonderful mass of sharp 
pinnacles towering up into the sky, the turrets 
and spires, as it were, of one of those glorious 
temples built by God's own hand, to testify to 
man of His greatness, and the littleness of 
human nature, and human edifices, which look 
like ants' nests in comparison — the magnificent 
and lofty mountain of Montserrat. 

Formerly the numberless caves in the rocks, 
were tenanted by anchorites ; and there were 
always several candidates waiting to fill any 
cell vacated by the death of its occupant ; and 
here Ignatius Loyola retired, after what he 
esteemed the miraculous cure of the wounds he 
had received in battle. The legend says that, 
after suffering the most excruciating pain, and 
lying in bed a whole year, finding physicians' 
aid in vain, he spent a whole night in prayer 
before the altar of the Virgin, vowing, if his 
health and strength were restored, to devote his 
life to God ; and that, when morning came, he 



228 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

was perfectly healed. Ah ! how, when one 
reads the miracles of the Bible, and those in the 
lives of Catholic saints, one wishes that in these 
days also, and for us, miracles could be per- 
formed ! On the altar of the Virgin in the con- 
vent of Montserrat, he laid his iron sword, and 
vowed to dedicate his life thenceforth to her 
service and that of God. 

There is a fine portrait of Ignatius Loyola at 
Hampton Court. I have often gazed on the 
broad high forehead, and wondered how a man 
with such a brow could be so bigoted ; but 
bigotry was the characteristic of his age. He 
organised a mighty power, even yet in exist- 
ence, but whether its force has been wielded 
most for good or for evil, perhaps no human 
being can say. That learning owes much to the 
Jesuits, none can doubt ; of the cruelties their 
order exercised in the name of religion, there is, 
alas ! small doubt also. 

Before I visited Spain, I had been told that 
all convents had been suppressed, and both 
monks and nuns expelled the country. They 
were so, no doubt ; but there are some plants 
which can never be wholly eradicated from the 
soil where they have once taken root. The 



BARCELONA TO MANRESA AXD CARDONA. 229 

tiniest sucker, nay, a very fibre from the root, 
lingering unsuspected in the ground, grows and 
vegetates, and lo ! in a few years they are as 
rank as ever. So it has been with the religious 
orders, both in France and Spain ; so it is begin- 
ning to be with them in England. I saw many 
nuns during my wanderings in Spain, and I was 
told everywhere, that the Jesuits had large 
establishments, under the name of seminaries, 
calling themselves seminarists instead of monks. 
I saw, in travelling, many ruined nunneries and 
convents. I saw also many flourishing ones. 
That at Montserrat still flourishes, and there are 
one or two more in and near Barcelona. 

For near a quarter of an hour the railroad 
seems continually to wind round Montserrat, of 
which one gets various excellent views, and I 
hardly knew which was the finest. I think 
that which shows the high, broad mountain, 
and a range of pinnacles on one side. Manresa 
and its two churches placed on the top of a 
hill, look well from a distance ; but I thought 
it a dirty, uninteresting town. As I had to 
stay there from about one o'clock till four, I 
had time to go and see both the churches, 
and much of the town. The Seu is a hand- 



230 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



some church, but much dilapidated and out of 
repair ; the other is not so fine. There did not 
seem to me a decent shop or street in the whole 
town, and, like almost all Spanish towns, it has 
no shade, although, from the bridge one crosses 
after leaving the railway : where one sees a few 
green trees and shrubs overhanging the stream, 
and growing among the fissures of the rock ; 
the river with its cascades of white foam, and 
the greenery ; verdure, and water, both so rare in 
burnt, parched-up Spain, the irregularly-built, 
picturesque-looking, high houses on the steep 
ascent of the hill, and the towers of the two 
churches crowning all, it would form a very 
lovely picture. 

I returned tired and hot to mine inn, and 
whiled away the time as I best could. There 
was only one other guest besides myself, and 
we two dined at the same table. He was of 
the industrious classes, as was proved by his 
espardines, or hempen sandals, no one above 
that rank wearing them in Spain, though one 
often sees very well-dressed men with beautifully 
clean white stockings and espardines. The 
regular espardine has only a hempen toe and 
heel ; there are no side-pieces, but a sort of edge 



BARCELONA TO MASHES A AND CARDOXA. 231 



is worked with a kind of crocket and in the 
crochet stitch, to the sides of the sole, so 
as just to keep the stockings off the ground. 
Broad strings of braid pass from the toe to the 
instep, betwixt the toe and heel, and crossing at 
the back of the leg, are tied in front, or at one 
side. The same sort of sandal is worn by the 
peasants of Andorre. We were waited on by a 
pretty young girl. 

6 1 dare say you would not think our atten- 
dant has been three years married,' said my 
acquaintance to me, 'but she has.' 

' I have been told Spanish girls marry very 
early/ I answered. 

' Yes,' said he ; ' she, however, was eighteen 
when she married, though she looks so young ; 
but when I married, my wife was only four- 
teen ; she was a mother before she was fifteen. 
She died seven years ago. I have been seven 
years a widower.' He said this with a half 
sigh. 

6 That is too young for a girl to marry,' said 
T ; £ she must be still too much of a child to be 
fit to manage a house and children.' 

6 Je ne sais pas,' he answered, and his coun- 
tenance showed memory was travelling back to 



232 OYER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

those early years of happiness ; 4 1 was twenty- 
three and she was fourteen when I married 
her, elle etait ma petite ! mon enfant ! ' 

It is my firm conviction that men don't like 
sensible women, even if they don't preach or 
usurp undue authority. Most men like babies ; 
something they can alternately worry and scold ; 
and pet as their 4 petite.' It is not the active, 
sensible, managing woman, who exerts herself 
for her husband and children's comfort, not- 
withstanding Solomon's sayings about 4 the 
prudent woman,' who is most beloved in life, 
and most regretted after death, however amiable 
she be ; it is the idle, lazy, yea-nay character, 
for whom everything has to be done, and who, 
had she been in the lower ranks of life, would 
have driven her husband to the public-house by 
her thriftlessness, slatternly house, and scream- 
ing, dirty, ill-managed children, that in the 
higher ranks of life, where she has servants to 
wait on her ; is beloved for her very helpless- 
ness. While we were waiting for a fresh plat, 
I looked at the painted walls, which represented 
landscapes, in panels. 4 Those are Galician 
scenes,' observed Senor Espardinos, 4 they wear 
that sash and waistcoat, and those knee breeches, 



BARCELONA TO MANRESA AND CARDOXA. 233 

in Galicia ; probably they were painted by a 
Galician.' They had not even a pretence to art ; 
they rather resembled the landscapes we see on 
cheap papers and tea-boards in England, but I 
should think they very likely were real scenes 
painted from memory, and the effect was not 
bad. And here I may observe, that this sort 
of coarse painting on walls appears to me much 
more common in Spain than papering them, and 
the arabesques and panels are often so well 
done, that it was only on close examination I 
found out they were painted. All the four 
rooms of the hotel at Manresa were thus de- 
corated. So were the two bedrooms I occupied 
at the Falcone, and at the Fonda del Oriente. 
My two bedrooms were painted to imitate paper- 
hangings with an arabesque border, and the 
ceiling of that at the Falcone was painted also, 
the beams being a light sea-green, while the 
space between each was painted with a small 
blue pattern on a white ground, exactly like a 
paper-hanging. We had a very good dinner, 
for Spain, at this inn at Manresa, quite as good 
as I ever got at the Fonda del Oriente, and I 
paid only two francs and a half, and a few sous 
to the waitress, for what I chose to take of three 



234 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

or four dishes ; fish, chicken, and stew being 
three of them, wine ad libitum, and fruit. At 
four, I got into the coupe of a huge lumbering 
diligence, along with two other people, while a 
party of soldiers in dirty yellow jackets, naked 
feet and espardines, looking extremely like con- 
victs, and some women with baskets returning 
from the market of Manresa, filled the rotunda, 
and another soldier perched on the uncomfort- 
able seat in front of us, beside the driver. The 
soldiers were very noisy, and shouted and 
laughed the whole way, but they were perfectly 
well conducted and civil. I think the working 
class are the most polished of any I met in 
Spain. I do not count the rabble, who molested 
me in the streets, among them ; they were 
rather the lazzaroni, and rabble, of Barcelona 
and Urgel. 

The whole drive was wonderfully picturesque 
and beautiful. We followed the banks of the 
river nearly the whole way, sometimes on one 
side of it, sometimes on the other, and as there 
were more trees, and brushwood, and stunted 
firs, on the sides of the ravines and mountains, 
or edging the banks of the stream, than usual ; 
the views had greater beauty and variety. The 



BARCELONA TO MANRESA AND CARDOJSTA. 235 

road had been very narrow, and men were still 
employed in widening it. 

In one place, a few miles from Manresa, the 
driver shouted something out, and all the sol- 
diers got out, as did two of the women ; not 
understanding, I and the fat market woman be- 
side me remained in the coupe ; a minute after, 
the diligence gave a lurch, and we were all but 
upset. What the driver had said was, that there 
was a 6 mauvais pas,' there. Before, however, 
we had time to be frightened, the danger — for 
it was danger — was over. 

What a drive that was ! We had five mules 
with most indescribable harness. The harness is 
always a strange mixture of finery and shabbi- 
ness. The yoke, made in the form of a Greek lyre, 
has generally once been crimson or purple, and 
is garnished with fringe or bells, as is the head- 
piece ; and the foremost mule or leader wears, 
as he ought to do, a general's plume of red and 
white on his head ; whilst the traces are some 
of leather, never cleaned, broken in places, and 
lashed together with twine ; and others of rope. 
Our leading mule had no rider, and our driver 
and a boy who sat by his side to aid him in 
his exertions, seemed to guide them chiefly by 



236 OYER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

their cries. How they did shout and whoop ! 
the most unearthly and extraordinary cries, 
such as I never heard before, except one or 
two that had been used by Joan ; and how 
they cracked, \>nt rarely used, their long whips 
' a l'envi l'un de l'autre ' — the very shouting 
alone must have been terrifically hard work — 
and bandied jests with the soldiers and laughed. 
Their merriment was infectious : I could not 
help laughing too, though I did not understand 
a word they said. 

The higher we got up into the mountains the 
more varied and beautiful was the scenery. 
The hill-sides in many places were covered 
with terraces of vines, or copses, probably self- 
sown, of low stunted firs ; while mountains 
rising beyond mountains, with blue valleys and 
vistas opening between them, till they closed in 
a mountain ridge, or were lost in purple cloud, 
for the sun was setting ; were indescribably 
charming. 

We changed our merry drivers when we 
changed mules, half-way to Cardona, and did 
not get so good a one. It was nearly dusk 
when we reached the head of the valley. The 
river we had followed on the narrow ledge of a 



BARCELONA TO MANRESA AND CARDONA. 237 

ravine, here widened, and flowed through, a 
small fertile-looking green valley : and at its 
head was the many-arched low bridge we had 
traversed ; a large handsome white house, with 
green jalousies, standing in a large garden, and 
two or three other white dwellings, also sur- 
rounded by gardens ; poplar, ash, alder, and 
other trees ; walled in on all sides by mountains 
of varied and picturesque form, on which the 
dark purple shadows of night were beginning 
to rest ; and the strong imposing fortress frown- 
ing from the high steep rock above, made up, 
altogether, one of the most beautiful and pecu- 
liar scenes it has ever been my lot to behold. 
Darker and darker grew the night ; and I ad- 
mired amazingly a glittering light, which I 
imagined marked the entrance of the salt-mines. 
We drove on, still on the precipitous banks of 
the stream, to a part of the road where men 
were busily employed by the light whose beauty 
had added so much to the effect of the view, 
in widening and repairing the road. Of course 
they knew the diligence was coming — it runs 
between Manresa and Car dona twice every day ; 
yet, with true Spanish indolence, they had left 
a large heap of immense blocks of unhewn 



238 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



stone right in the way of the wheels on one 
side — it was in the very narrowest and worst 
part of the whole road; the diligence lurched, 
and half overhung the low parapet wall which 
alone protected us from the precipitous bank 
of the river, and the mules stumbled and fell. 
It was frightful. At last, by a vigorous effort, 
they raised themselves, and dragged us on. It 
seemed really as if they knew their danger — for 
had the diligence gone over the parapet, they 
must have fallen too — by the violent efforts 
they made, and we owed our safety not to 
the men or driver, but to the poor brutes. 

When they stopped, panting with their exer- 
tions, we all screamed to be let out. 

e There is no more danger,' said the driver. 

' Let us out ! ' we chorused. 4 The diligence 
will be lighter for the mules,' said I. 

' Ah, yes ! far better,' cried the fat woman. 

6 True,' said the driver meditatively ; and he 
opened the door. 

What a getting out it was ! A man got out 
first through the window out of the rotunda 
into the coupe, thence on to the rock ; then he 
helped me out. There was no room to stand ; 
I sat down on some large stones that lay against 



BARCELONA TO MANEESA AND CAEDONA. 239 

the rock, with my feet hanging below me, for 
there was no space to put them on betwixt 
these stones, and the wheels of the diligence, and 
held on as well as I could by my hands. Then 
the fat woman was helped out, and she, unable 
to do the like, I suppose, placed herself upon 
my knees. The diligence had stuck in a rut 
against the stones, and it was hard work indeed 
to support both my own weight and the fat 
woman's, by holding on to that narrow ledge of 
stone, until the mules again dragged it forward ; 
when we all got on to the road, and followed it 
for, I should think, above a mile and a half up, a 
steep precipitous hill, with a chasm on one side, 
by the dim light of the diligence lantern, on a 
moonless night. Thankful was I when we en- 
tered the town. There I was beset by a crowd 
of people, insisting on taking me to an hotel 
further on ; but I had made up my mind to 
stay at the venta where the diligence stayed, that 
I might return with it at eight o'clock the next 
morning, after seeing the salt-mines ; and when 
they saw I was immovable, they at last left me 
to take my own course. 

I felt very unwell, but I asked for coffee and 
forced myself to drink it, and then I was shown 



240 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

to a good-sized bedroom, divided, as is usual 
in Spain, as if for two rooms, by folding doors, 
but having no doors, and no windows either in 
the inner one, wherein stood a large bed. Per- 
haps if I could have had a good night's rest my 
sickness would have passed away, for I was 
hardly able to keep my eyes open from fatigue, 
but I had scarcely dropped asleep, when bite 
after bite awoke me, and I awoke to find those 
horrible insects crawling and hopping in all 
directions over my bed. When morning came, 
I got up before six, hoping to see the salt-mines, 
but, alas ! I could hardly stand ; my hands shook 
so, I could scarcely put on my clothes, and I 
was obliged to sit down several times during 
the process of dressing from faintness. I could 
not retain any food, or even attempt to swallow 
anything but cold water ; therefore, to my great 
vexation, I was obliged to abandon all idea of 
seeing the salt-mines, and return to Manresa by 
the eight o'clock diligence. My readers must, 
therefore, content themselves with Mr. Ford's ac- 
count of them. Their disappointment will not 
equal mine, for my journey to Cardona and back 
cost me five pounds — money spent in vain. 
'The route from Manresa to Suria runs 



BARCELONA TO MANRESA AND CARD ON A. 241 

through a wild country, where pine trees are 
mingled with vines. 

6 Suria, an ancient-looking, unwhite washed 
town, rises on a hill over the Gardener ' (river), 
'whose stream and valley is passed through, 
until ascending a stony rise, Cardona appears, 
with its castle towers, long lines of fortifications, 
straggling houses, cypress gardens, and arched 
buildings. 

6 The celebrated and inexhaustible mine lies 
below to the left, before reaching the bridge. 
An order, always granted, is necessary from the 
steward of the Duke of Medina Celi. The mine 
is an absolute mountain of salt, emerging in a 
jagged outline nearly 500 feet high and a league 
in circumference ; it differs from the mine at 
Minglanilla, as being on the surface. These are 
the mines mentioned by Strabo (hi. 219). The 
salt pinnacles shoot forth from a brownish earth, 
like a quarry of marble dislocated by gunpow- 
der. The colours of these saline glaciers vary 
extremely, and are brilliant in proportion as the 
weather is fine. When the sun shines, they look 
like stalactites turned upside down, and are 
quite prismatic, with rainbow tints of reds and 
blues. It seems a Sindbad valley of precious 

R 



242 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

stones. Some of the grottoes look like fairy- 
cells, lined as it were with preserved fruits, 
sparkling with crystallized sugar. There is a 
peculiar mixed colour which is called arlequino. 
Visit the Farad Mico, the hole of the squirrel, 
said to be a mile in depth. The miners make 
little articles of this salt, as is done with the 
fluor spars in Derbyshire, which never liquefy in 
the dry air of Spain.' 

Does not this concise description make one 
long to see this famous mine, and was it not 
grievous to spend five pounds in going to see it, 
and be too ill to visit it when on the spot ? If 
the reality be as much surpassing the descrip- 
tion in beauty as the lovely valley of Cardona, 
with, its majestic fortress built on the top of 
that high, steep, picturesque rock, and the lofty 
and beautiful mountains that close it in on 
every side, surpasses Mr. Ford's account of it, I 
had a loss indeed. I admired Cardona so much, 
I hardly regretted having come, though I could 
not see the mine. 

In due time I safely reached Manresa. While 
I was loitering about the station there, waiting 
till I could take my ticket, a working man came 
up and hailed me, from my straw bonnet, as a 



BARCELONA TO MANRESA AND CARD ON A. 243 

countrywoman ; and I was glad enough to see 
any English face, and hear my dear old English 
tongue. He told me he was employed on the 
railway, as were a good many other English- 
men; they and their wives, he said, formed a 
little colony of English at Barcelona, being 
about thirty in number ; and he invited me to 
go and drink tea with them all, telling me Lady 
Franklin had done so when at Barcelona. I 
said truly I was just on the point of leaving the 
place ; but as I did stay two days longer, I was 
rather sorry afterwards, I had not accepted his 
invitation. He asked me where I had been, 
and on my saying I had been too ill to taste 
food that day, told me I could get a cup of tea 
at the station. That sounded refreshing, and I 
was faint for want of nourishment, for it was 
near three o'clock in the afternoon ; so I went 
in, and as he spoke Catalan, he ordered the tea 
for me. While I was taking it, he called for 
limonade gazeuse for himself ; and gave me his 
opinion of the Spaniards. Every one seems to 
say the same. Mr. Ford, while he praises the 
country, is incessantly lashing the natives for 
cruelty, indolence, pride, inordinate self-love, or 
Espanalismo, selfishness, and greed ; and I have 

K 2 



244 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

found them what he describes. No doubt 
there are thousands of gentlemanlike, excellent, 
honourable, highly-gifted men to be found in 
so large a country ; but a people's character 
must be judged of like a hay-stack or a corn- 
rick — by the worth of the mass. One does not 
pull out here a dried blade of grass, and there a 
withered clover blossom, or a few larger ears 
than usual, to prove how luxuriant and odori- 
ferous the hay crop, or how fine the wheat. My 
new acquaintance abused them heartily. 

6 They are a dreadful set,' said he ; ' the 
biggest thieves in the world, and such liars ! 
and as proud and mean as can be, though they 
know nothing. Why, they'd never have had 
railways if we English had not made 'em for 
them ; and now they've got 'em, they can't 
drive an engine properly, and all their engines 
come from England.' 

4 Aye,' said I ; 6 as I passed up the fine yester- 
day morning, the people in the carriages were 
all thrusting their heads out of the window, 
and exclaiming, so I looked out too. I heard 
them calling " Dos machina ! " and I saw two 
new engines just arrived, and my heart swelled 
with pride when I read " Manchester " on the 
boilers, and thought how England led the march 




BARCELONA TO MANRESA AND CAEDONA. 245 

of improvement and progress even in foreign 
lands.' 

6 Aye,' said he, ' and they're not obliged to us 
neither ; they only hate us because we know 
more than them. I contracted for seven years, 
and I've been here six. Next year my time's 
out, and then, thank Heaven ! me and my 
missis return to England.' 

Another Englishman here entered ; he also 
was employed on the line, and complained he 
was worked to death because there was no 
Spaniard who could take his place and drive 
the engine. 

When I had finished my tea, which, though 
very like the tea at the cold-water establish- 
ments, yet refreshed me greatly, I took out my 
purse to pay for it. 6 JSTo,' said the first English- 
man, 'when I meet a countrywoman in a foreign 
land, I can't let her pay for herself.' I tried to 
insist, but saw I should only wound him ; so I 
thankfully accepted the refreshment I had had 
from him. That was the only hospitality shown 
me by any one in Spain. He said he would 
call on me at the Fonda, but he did not, and I 
was sorry, for I meant to have returned his 
kindness by the gift of an English collar and 
cuffs to his wife. 



246 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



CHAPTEE IX. 

BARCELONA TO MADRID. 

I had been advised to avoid Madrid, on account 
of the intense heat which pervades one side of 
a street, while a cold wind from the moun- 
tains sweeps down the other, so that a wayfarer 
passes as it were, at the angle of a street corner, 
from Syria into the chilling atmosphere of an 
English March : which is apt to bring on fever, 
especially with strangers. The Spanish proverb 
itself acknowledges the disadvantages of the 
climate — 

El aire de Madrid es tan sotil, 

Que mata a un hombre, y no apaga a un candil.* 

People never take advice, and I went to 
Madrid, and in the hot season, not however out 
of contradiction or obstinacy, but because cir- 

* The air of Madrid is so subtle that it extinguishes the life 
of a man, though it will not put out a candle. 



BARCELONA TO MADRID. 



247 



cumstances compelled me. I have already had 
one nervous fever, which confined me three 
months, and whose effects I shall feel all my 
life, from the results of sea-sickness. I was un- 
well the whole time I was at Barcelona, from 
the combined effects of over violent exercise in 
traversing the mountains, and want of good 
nourishing food ; and nearly five weeks of 
sleepless nights from the attacks of insects. I 
felt too ill to venture a sea voyage of three or 
four days, from Barcelona to Alicante. I en- 
quired about the railway fare, so far as the rail- 
way is open on that line, and found it would 
cost me double the fare to Madrid ; so I went to 
the capital, en route for Granada, travelling — 
blush for me, 0 my critics ! — third class. It 
cost me, for Keeper and myself, about three 
pound ten. I started from the hotel, or Fonda 
del Oriente, at seven in the morning, and had a 
fresh experience of Spanish delay and incivility. 
As I was going, it was not worth while to be 
civil to me any longer, and le service had been 
paid for in the hotel bill. I asked one waiter 
after another — in all I asked six times — to take 
down my three packages, that they might be 
ready against the omnibus came, explaining 



248 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

that I wanted to see them down, and then take 
Keeper into the town for a walk. ' Si, senora, 
prao, prao, senora, ora, ora, senora.' ' Tont 
de suite, a l'instant ; ' but no one ever came for 
them, though I rang, called, and went myself 
down two long nights of stairs (three several 
times) to seek for a waiter. The consequence 
was, Keeper never got his walk. At last a 
waiter entered, followed by another man ; ' the 
omnibus driver for madame ; he will take down 
the packets.' He shouldered and marched off 
with them. Before I could tie on my cloak (I 
had every other article of outdoor dress on), 
muzzle the dog according to law, and rush 
down stairs, he was gone. I rushed frantically 
to the porte-cochere of the Fonda. No omni- 
bus was in sight. 

■ Where is the omnibus ? ' cried I to the in- 
terpreter, who was coolly smoking his cigar, 
and, like all the rest, clearly enjoying my an- 
noyance, for your Spaniard is never so happy 
as when he can annoy a foreigner. 

c Probably that is it — yes, there it is,' pointing 
to one standing up the Eambla. 

I rushed after it. Had the conductor my 
pacquets? 'Yes, entrez.' I looked, but saw 



BARCELONA TO MADRID. 



249 



no luggage. I went back to the driver. ' Had 
lie been to the Fonda del OrieDte ? ' 4 No, 
serlora, al bagno.' The mischievous guide 
whom I had not employed, had sent me to the 
wrong omnibus,* and I should not be able to 
start that day for Madrid, and should perhaps 
lose my luggage. Back I raced to the Fonda, 
called the valets who were lounging in the 
court, explaining what they knew, that I could 
not explain myself in Spanish ; and had lost 
the omnibus, and wanted one of them to help 
me to find it. No one stirred — I had left 
the Fonda. At last I saw the secretary ; he 
accompanied me to the Eambla, and, racing 
as fast as we could, we caught the omnibus on 
the point of starting. One place was vacant, 
into which I jumped with Keeper, and we 
started. I presume the object was to cause me 
to lose my place, and be obliged to remain at 
the Fonda del Oriente ; but what short-sighted 
policy ! How different from the master of the 
Hotel du Pare at Antwerp, who so kindly gives 

* The railway omnibuses start from one particular office in 
the Rambla, which the guide well knew, though I did not. He 
pointed out the omnibus going the other way, np the Rambla, 
to the baths ; on purpose to mislead me. 



250 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



the traveller every possible comfort and atten- 
tion while his inmate, and when he departs, 
literally fulfils the old lines — 

True hospitality is thus expressed : 

Welcome the coming — speed the parting guest. 

We reached the ferro carril. A woman 
whispered me the fare was ' un reau,' and a reau 
(about fourpence) I gave. I had been compelled 
to pay two pesetas (five reals) the day I arrived 
at Barcelona for the same distance and the same 
amount of luggage. 

Properly speaking, I should say a real ; but 
the common people, and even the shopkeepers, 
all talk of a reau and a piesette, instead of a 
peseta and a real — the proper terms. In fact, 
there are so many different kinds of money in 
Spain, and so many different dialects, that a 
stranger gets utterly bewildered amongst them; 
beside which, the people are not like the French, 
disposed to help him out of any difficulty, but 
enjoy his bewilderment, because for the moment 
they feel his superiors in knowledge. 

I believe the intense dislike of the Spanish 
populace — for, of course, I do not speak of the 
educated classes, who are much the same in all 
countries — originates in a galling consciousness 



BARCELONA TO MADRID. 



251 



of their own inferiority, in all things, to other 
nations, especially the English. They resemble 
the inmates of London boarding-houses, who 
being, for the most part, people to whom the 
living in large well-furnished rooms, in a hand- 
some house, is a rise in life ; and conscious of 
their different mode of existence in times past 
as sons and daughters of butchers and graziers, 
ci-devant schoolmasters, ushers, ladies'-maids, 
and housekeepers — all very useful and excellent 
people in their way, but not born gentlemen and 
gentlewomen, and afraid that people of higher 
station should be rude to, or despise them — de- 
termine at all hazards to strike the first blow ; 
and attempt to sully and degrade the superiority 
they are forced to admit, even to themselves. 

Both Spanish and English vulgarians are 
wrong. Eeal superiority never assumes — never 
despises any one, nor is wilfully rude. Neither 
does genius. The real test of true genius, or 
superiority, is the power of putting yourself in 
another person's place ; and making allowance 
for him. The parvenu, or the clever man or 
woman, is often insolent, because both are vain 
of a little eminence. The true gentleman 
or gentlewoman — the real genius— is always 



252 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

humble, afraid to wound the feelings of others 
by claiming his or her right place. It is always 
the ignorant and vulgar who attack any one 
they feel and know to be above them. 

When I went to get my railway ticket, the 
throng, the crush, and the excitement were as 
bad as at an English railway station, where the 
clerks allow some five hundred, or thousand 
people, or twice that number, just ten minutes 
to get their tickets and their change, before the 
train starts ; that they may themselves have 
plenty of time to smoke their cigars, read novels, 
and gossip. 

In Germany and in France ample time for 
getting all necessary tickets is allowed. Not so 
in Spain ; and as the Spaniards always put off 
anything that can be put off to the last, the 
crowd and pushing is great. When I applied 
for my ticket, a dirty-looking servant twice 
pushed herself before me in the rudest way ; so 
did others, who all came like her and myself to 
the counter. 

At last I said I had been long waiting. I 
wanted a third-class ticket to Madrid. 

4 Si; it was so much.' 

I paid the money. 



BARCELONA TO MADRID. 



253 



6 But what did niadame want then ? ' seeing 
I did not move away 

'Her change and her ticket.' 

'Ah ! si ; the Senora was right. Here is the 
change.' 

'And the billet?' 

' You will get it within,' — expressed by pan- 
tomime. 

A man stepped forward — 

' Yes, if the Senora follows me, she will get 
her billet.' 

I followed in mute despair. What proof had 
I, that I had paid near three pounds for a ticket 
not given to me, but which I saw given to 
others ? My guide conducted me to the luggage 
office, where I pointed out my luggage. 

' But before it could be weighed, the Senora 
must show her billet.' 

' I had not one. The Senor had sent me 
here.' 

' I must go back; it was there I should get it.' 

' Here,' said my guide, 'this man at the door 
gives them.' 

' No, he did not ; they gave tickets at the 
luggage office. I must go there.' 

' I had been, and they sent me here.' 



254 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



4 Then the Senora must go to the ticket 
office.' 

6 1 had been,' &c. &c. 

I went once more. The ticket-giver shrugged 
his shoulders, and waved and spread out his 
hands to heaven in mute despair at the English- 
woman's inconceivable stupidity, and sent me 
back to the luggage office. My self-appointed 
guide good-naturedly went with me, and again 
explained for me that I had had no ticket given, 
though I had paid my money. This time they 
weighed the luggage, and gave me — ' for a con- 
sideration' — a ticket for Keeper. 

£ The train was on the point of starting, I had 
better get my own ticket.' 

" Yes, but where ? ' 

I was in utter despair ; the crowd rushing 
past me breathless in all directions to the train, 
which was on the point of starting, when the 
man of the ticket office rushed into its midst. 

' The senora Inglese !' cried he. 

'My ticket!' cried I. 

'Ah! si; here is the Senora's ticket' 

I then dimly comprehended that it was pro- 
bable that only a certain number of tickets for 
every train were issued to him by his superiors, 



BARCELONA TO MADRID. 



255 



that he had sold all his tickets, and had had to 
send for fresh ones. I rnshed off to the train 
through a salle d'attente, so densely packed 
that you could scarce have crammed another 
human being into it — Keeper tugging at his 
chain with such force as nearly to pull me down, 
and getting between men's legs, and under 
women's crinolines, and twisting his chain round 
people, and exciting universal indignation, in 
which his mistress fully sympathised ; in his 
anxiety to reach the train. We got to it at 
last; and that wretch of a clog jumped into 
carriage after carriage, and had to be pulled out, 
till we got at last to his carriage, when, to the 
porter's intense surprise, he clambered up to 
his cage as soon as the door was opened, 
wagging his tail, and frisking with delight and 
eagerness. I do believe that dog delights in 
travelling, and likes the excitement of new 
walks, new scenes, and new companions of the 
canine race; as much as any human being enjoys 
fresh scenes and fresh society. 

The Spanish third-class railway carriage is 
like a huge omnibus, divided into four divisions, 
each of which holds a row of people on either 
side, and sometimes there~ is a double row of 



256 OYEK THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



people sitting back to back in the middle of 
each quarter. There is always a lamp burning, 
but there are no window blinds, which in this 
burning country are almost a necessity. 

The woman I sat next was very ugly and very 
vixenish. She grumbled at being disturbed by 
my entrance, and that of other people. The seat 
I sat on was against the door, and had to be 
lifted up every time any one entered; and once 
it caught her gown when let down. 

6 Las Inglesas ! ' said she, scornfully. 

I stopped her mouth — 6 Las Inglesas ! you 
would not have had any railways at all but for 
"los Ingleses." Les machina all come from 
England.' 

She was silenced. In fact, not only do the 
engines all come from England, but most of the 
conductors or drivers on the Barcelona line are 
English. With this exception, my companions 
were all civil to me ; and I found, as Dr. Webster 
had said, that a third-class railway carriage 
showed me more, in one day, of Spanish char- 
acter and costumes than I should have learnt 
in any other in three weeks. It showed the 
Spanish also in their best light. Throughout 
that long day's journey, there was no fighting 



BARCELONA TO MADEID. 



257 



for places, no ill-humour, no selfishness dis- 
played, except by that one woman. I have 
since travelled with the bourgeoisie of Spain, 
and I greatly prefer travelling with the peasants. 
They are far more courteous, and less selfish. 
Their different dress and manners was a very 
amusing study ; and again, for the thousandth 
time, I wished I had been an artist. Beside 
me sat a middle-aged labourer, who had his 
hand upon what I thought was the curly head 
of a Scotch terrier, from its light sandy hue. 

4 Ah! ' said 1, 4 you have got your perro here; 
mine is in the dog-box.' 

There was a general laugh. He had some- 
thing better than any perro — his own child ; 
dark-eyed, but with light brown hair, like an 
English bairn. His wife, who sat beside him 
with a pretty little baby in her arms, would have 
been a model for a painter. She was not exactly 
pretty ; but she had a sort of rustic, natural 
grace in all her movements ; and the contour of 
her head, neck, and figure, and her features, ex- 
cept a petit nez retrousse, a la Roxelane, were 
all classic. The wavy dark brown hair was put 
back from her brow, and fastened in a knot at 
the back of her head, just like that of a Greek 



258 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



Venus ; and, as in that, a stray curl or two half 
escaped, and waved loosely over the delicate, 
shell-shaped ear. She wore a chemise, with full 
sleeves gathered above the elbows, and her beau- 
tifully moulded arms, and brown but perfect 
hands, were bare ; and I thought how much 
better that full shift sleeve, often seen in foreign 
paintings, sets off the arm than any London or 
Parisian ball dress. Above her shift she wore a 
double kerchief of dark green muslin and a 
coloured print skirt. After awhile, she changed 
places with her husband, who spread a shawl 
on the bench for the elder child, and tried to 
get it to sleep ; but it was too excited to slum- 
ber. I never saw a man so fond of his child ; 
he was always feeding, or giving it drink, or 
hugging it. 

I do like to see a man fond of his wife and 
children. It is always a proof of true manliness 
when a man is tender to those weaker than him- 
self; and I grew quite interested in my two 
neighbours. As to the baby, it was a little 
darling ; and might have been a Queen's, if high 
birth gave beauty ; so delicate were its small 
features, so exquisite the symmetry of its little 
frame. Its fingers were like transparent wax, 



BARCELONA TO MADRID. 



259 



soft, and pink, like sea-side shells ; and I sat 
and watched it, first laughing and crowing — its 
soft, dark eyes beaming with gladness : and then 
sinking, tired with play, to rest on its mother's 
bosom for hours. I never saw such good 
children as those two were. They went half- 
way to Madrid ; and in all that long, weary 
journey, they never cried or annoyed anyone. 
I envied the pretty peasant her baby — I, who 
had nothing better than a perro ! 

At one station, three or four wild banditti- 
looking men got into the carriage. 

4 Gendarme di Espagna,' cried one of my 
neighbours. 

6 To prevent the brigands putting their hands 
in your pocket/ said one of the new comers. 

4 What ! ' said I, horrified ; 4 do the brigands 
attack railway travellers ? ' 

Everyone laughed, and tried to mystify me ; 
but the fact was, the gendarmes were only 
travelling from one station to another, at which 
they got out. They were fine, powerful men, 
as most of the Spaniards are. Their costume 
was very picturesque, but very unsoldierlike, to 
English eyes. They wore hats, turned up with 
white lace, and a bit of lace forming a sort of 

s 2 



260 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

cockade at one side; jackets trimmed with silver 
lace ; a leathern belt, to which was affixed their 
cartouche boxes ; and white trousers. As to 
their waistcoats, that appeared a private matter 
of taste : for each had a different patterned 
velveteen ; naked feet ; shod with the common 
hempen sandals worn by the peasants, and 
lower bourgeoisie, or workmen ; completed their 
attire. And each bore in his hand a very 
primitive-looking gun, with a slender bore, and 
a very large, wide stock. 

At Manresa, the conductor called out, 'Twenty 
minutes' delay here ;' and I and everyone got out 
to lunch. I knew we should have no chance of 
food again until we reached Saragossa at night- 
fall. After refreshing myself, I re-entered the 
carriage I had left, and was almost instantly 
turned out by the conductor, who cried out, 
' That waggon was not going on — the train was 
in motion; I must not delay an instant.' It was, 
in fact, moving slowly. Of course, I jumped 
out ; but I had hardly got seated in another 
carriage before I remembered the parcel of 
guide-books and MS., wrapped up in my shawl, 
I had had under the seat, and left there when I 
got out to lunch. I called to the conductor, as 



BARCELONA TO MADRID. 



261 



he passed from carriage to carriage to look at 
tickets ; and he assured me the luggage was safe, 
and I could send a message about it at the next 
station. I did so ; and asked, moreover, to speak 
to one of the English workmen employed on the 
line, who also promised to send a message to 
Manresa about it. The conductor, he said, had 
telegraphed for it. I knew it was false, for he 
would have come to me for money to pay for 
the telegram ; but as nothing could be done 
till I reached Madrid, I was fain to be con- 
tent. 

As we drew nearer to Madrid, the day, which 
had been so intensely hot, began to cloud over. 
Drizzling rain fell at intervals ; and by the time 
we reached the mountains which surround the 
city, at a distance of apparently some six or eight 
miles, it came down heavily and drearily ; and 
now I sadly missed the warm old shawl, strapped 
round my precious MS. and guide-books, which 
had comforted and kept me warm through so 
many a journey. I had nothing on but a thin 
cotton Garibaldi and a black lace shawl, and 
despite a waterproof cloak, which I fortunately 
had with me, I shivered with cold. After the 
heat of Barcelona that morning, when the ther- 



262 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

nioraeter was nearly ninety, I now shivered with 
cold. It was cold as in a stormy March even- 
ing in England. 

I have seldom spent a more wretched night 
than that in which I travelled to the Spanish 
capital. The mountains which surround Madrid 
are not grand or beautiful in form, nor do they 
give one the idea of great height. The ground 
seemed to me to rise continually from about half 
way from Barcelona, so that the plateau on which 
the city stands must be very elevated. The wh ole 
route after leaving Manresa, and losing sight of 
the wild and beautiful Montserrat, is dreary and 
uninteresting. Long reaches of sandy or dry, 
dull-coloured clay, backed by hills of the same ; 
unbroken by woods or valleys, with no herbage, 
no verdure of any sort to refresh the eye — no 
rivers or streams. I wondered how any one 
could live in such a sandy desert. I had heard 
in Yorkshire of a young English lady who, some 
years ago, after travelling through France, Italy, 
Germany, and Spain, bought a farm and settled 
herself for life near Madrid. Surely it could not 
have been in these desolate regions. Here and 
there we passed a wretched village or a small 
town. The people looked healthy, yet how 



BARCELONA TO MADRID. 



263 



they could, do so, was my continual wonder, 
when I looked at the muddy tanks which sup- 
plied their only water. 

At one place, some of our party asked for 
water. 

4 You could not drink it, it is so bad,' was the 
reply ; further on, at the next station, you may 
get some.' 

I had read that the tops of the mountains, 
near Madrid, were nearly always covered with 
snow. When I awoke from unquiet slumber, 
they were distinctly visible ; but I saw no snow, 
and the air was perceptibly less cold than during 
the storm of last night. Numbers of peasants 
now got in at every petty station, to go to their 
daily work. Most of them wore a singular 
pointed-crowned hat, made of cotton velvet, 
with a very broad brim, turned up by a second 
brim or border of about two fingers' breadth : 
it was picturesque-looking enough, but must 
have been very heavy and uncomfortable ; a 
velveteen or cotton jacket, waistcoat, and knee 
breeches, and a very broad sash, folding round 
the loins, in which they carried their long- 
handled knives, and which also served as a 
pocket : for I saw several of them produce from 



264 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



it their morning meal of bread and onions. All 
were perfectly civil and well-behaved. 

A Frenchman and woman also got in. He 
was employed in making one of the new railways 
near the capital, and so was the woman's hus- 
band. Numbers of the workmen employed in 
making these railways are English or French, as 
the Spaniards understand nothing about them 
till taught by more civilised nations. Both had 
been seven years in Spain ; and both spoke, as 
did the English workmen I met, with contempt 
and bitterness of the Spanish character. 

6 They are ignorant and lazy, those Spaniards,' 
said the man. 

' And great thieves!' struck in the woman ; 
6 And they all, look you, like those peasants, 
carry a long knife, half a yard long, in their 
sashes ; and for a jest, a mere trifle, they stab 
one another in a drunken bout or a quarrel ! 
Such things occur every day. They are a de- 
testable race ! ' ' And everything is so dear in 
Spain, and they make all strangers pay double,' 
said the Frenchwoman, shrugging her shoulders 
expressively. ' Ah! ils sont vilains ! ' 

6 Why do you stay in such a country? ' 

' Ah ! my husband is employed in making a 



BARCELONA TO MADRID. 



265 



canal for the railway. He gets goods wages, 
otherwise I should be thankful to return to 
France.' 

At last we reached the plain on which Madrid 
stands, and I looked out eagerly for the capital of 
Spain. In my childish days, ' Gil Bias ' and the 
'Diable Boiteux' had rendered it familiar to my 
fancy ; and now I was about to see if the reality 
equalled my imagination. It was broad day- 
light, but I saw nothing grand or striking as we 
approached the city, and felt disappointed. We 
got to the station about eight o'clock a.m., and 
again I inquired for my missing parcel, but in 
vain. I was told it would probably arrive next 
morning, and I had better inquire then ; so I 
got a cab and drove to an hotel in one of the 
best streets, near the Puerto del Sol, which had 
been recommended to me. 

The drive from the Barcelona Eailway Station 
to the Puerto del Sol is rather striking, and gave 
me a pleasant impression of Madrid. One passes 
up a long prado or public walk, resembling, but 
oh ! how inferior, that of the Champs Elysees : 
shaded by trees, with thousands of chairs be- 
neath them ; and decorated with marble foun- 
tains, not m the best taste. The trees have all 



266 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

a small canal running from tree to tree, or a 
semicircle round them, which is twice a day 
filled with water ; or they would not live in this 
burning sun, and arid, parched-up soil : and 
which is a great convenience to the dogs, who 
can there quench their thirst ; and also to the 
lazzaroni who lie about on the benches, appa- 
rently all day doing nothing : and sleep there 
also, I am informed. I saw dozens of them, 
day after day, when the water was dried up, 
sitting with their feet in the trenches ; apparently 
for the sake of the coolness of the ground. It 
also passes the botanic garden, which is, in 
reality a neglected wilderness, whose iron 
grating, and the tall trees behind it, look well 
from a distance. 

The Puerto del Sol, the principal street in 
Madrid, is as irregular a square as that of Tra- 
falgar in London ; but its large, handsome foun- 
tain, and tall, many- windowed white houses, with 
their white persiennes, and gay shops, makes it 
look attractive and lively : and though the Court 
was absent, and the grandees all gone to their 
country seats ; the town and prado were always 
densely thronged by well-dressed men and 
women. I thought I should like very well to 
spend a week at Madrid, and a very good dinner 



BARCELONA TO MADRID. 



267 



a la Franqaise at nay hotel, strengthened the 
impression. Heartily tired, I went to bed in a 
very clean looking room, with a tiled floor ; 
to bed, I say — not to rest ! Never, no never, in 
all my wanderings, did I pass such a night. 
The bed was alive : B flats swarmed on it like 
ants in an anthill ; the numbers turned me lite- 
rally sick as they crawled about, and I spent 
the night in ceaseless warfare. The critics, if 
they please, may growl over this passage. I 
hold that it is a traveller's duty to report truly 
of any country. It prevents others from form- 
ing a false idea of it, and being seduced by 
flourishing descriptions to encounter evils which 
may cause serious illness or even death ; and it 
benefits the inhabitants of those countries, be- 
cause no evils are remedied until they are first 
held up to public reprobation. If no travellers 
had mentioned the habit of emptying all slops 
out of the window in Edinburgh and Lisbon, 
about a hundred years ago ; that delightful prac- 
tice might have gone on to this day, as it does 
yet in Corsica. Before a people amend, they 
must learn there is a better way than their 
own ; and a people like the Spaniards or Cor- 
sicans, who rarely travel, can only learn it from 
the remarks made in books and journals, 



268 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



CHAPTEE X. 

MADRID. 

I went the next morning to the Barcelona rail- 
way station to inquire for my parcel. It was 
not there, of course, and I asked for the tele- 
graph office. Will any English person believe 
the officials refused to telegraph for it ? They 
were not Men with the Saragossa line, it was 
not their line ; and as I had lost my baggage 
through the fault of an employe, who ought to 
have given notice of the change of waggons at 
Manresa, the telegram contained a complaint, 
and they felt a certain delicacy, &c. &c. I had 
better go to the government telegraph office at 
the Puerto del Sol. 

All this takes little time to write, but, ah ! 
what weary hours I passed that morning ; how 
I was bandied about — always with perfect cour- 
tesy, however- — from one official to another, from 



MADRID. 



269 



one office to another, before I could ascertain, 
first, that my parcel had not arrived ; next, 
that I could not telegraph for it from that 
station. It was near four o'clock p.m. when I 
quitted it, and I went about ten in the morning. 
If ever there was a people who understood 
6 how not to do it,' and who were the original 
inventors of ' the Circumlocution Office,' it is the 
Spaniards. How anything ever does get done 
in Spain — how anybody is ever born, or married, 
or buried there — I cannot conceive. The people 
seem to have an instinctive horror of the pre- 
sent tense. Ask for anything, " Ora, ora, prao, 
prao ! ' by-and-by, is the inevitable response ; 
and if you are hungry, you may think yourself 
lucky, if you get something to eat in three 
hours, after you have asked for it a dozen times. 
I went to the Puerto del Sol, and found the 
government telegraph office ; there, also, they 
were perfectly civil, and there also they took an 
hour to do what in England would have been 
done in ten minutes. Not because of my de- 
fective Spanish, and the telegraph clerk's equally 
defective French ; but long after the message 
was written out, it had to be shown to this 
person and that person, and, in short, by the 



270 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

time I had done, and got my message sent, it 
was nearly six o'clock. I had just time to reach 
my hotel and wash my hands before the six 
o'clock table d'hote dinner. 

I went of course to see the outside of the 
Queen's palace. It is a handsome building of 
white marble, and has a fine view of the sur- 
rounding mountains, as it is built in the out- 
skirts of the city; but the approach to it, 
through dirty narrow streets, is very bad. I 
went also to see the churches, none of which 
are fine. Madrid has no cathedral, and no fine 
public buildings. I read in an affiche on the 
walls that there was to be a concert and fire- 
works afterwards in some public gardens, so I 
engaged the interpreter of the hotel as an 
escort, and went there. It was a gay and 
pretty sight. The place was crowded ; and as, 
on my return, I saw innumerable handsome 
private carriages taking up parties at the en- 
trance, I conclude that many people of wealth 
and consequence were there. The women of 
Madrid do not strike me as pretty in general ; 
but I saw many pretty women that night. The 
Spanish way of dressing the hair is not becom- 
ing. ' The glory of a Spanish woman is her 



MADRID. 



271 



hair, of which they have usually a great quan- 
tity,' says Mr. Ford. Innocent Mr. Ford ! Pro- 
bably Mrs. Ford, who was an Englishwoman, 
had abundant hair, and therefore he believed 
the bows and curls of other women to be real.* 
Most Spaniards have large, ill-formed heads. 
The women increase this natural defect by friz- 
zing the hair, and turning it over a couple of 
large horse-hair puffs above the temples, while 
the back hair is combed out so as to cover an 
immense horse-hair puff behind, or an immense 
knot of false hair is pinned on to the back of 
the head. Over this they sometimes wear a 
small black veil, or a black lace shawl ; and 
many add to that a black silk scarf, pinned just 
above the comb behind ; whose weight in time 
drags off the hair entirely ; so that a great num- 
ber of women I saw in the streets, both of Bar- 
celona and Madrid were perfectly bald on the 
top of their heads. This scarf is very ugly, 

* The interpreter, who, though Italian by birth, had lived 
many years in Spain, told me it was false. ' Look at their 
hair/ said he, ' but it is almost all false hair, they puff it out 
as much as they can by horse-hair puffs, and then they add a 
false top-knot. If you look, you will see the hairdressers' shops 
full of both crinoline puffs and bows for the back.' It was easy 
to detect the false hair wherever worn. 



272 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

especially when worn over a light coloured 
shawl, or a dress and mantle such as are now in 
vogue ; as, when seen from behind, it cuts the 
figure in two as it were, a little above the 
waist : and ill replaces the graceful mantilla of 
which I have heard and read so much, but 
which I have never, however, seen in Spain. In 
fact the dress of the Spanish women is in a 
state of transition. They have given up the 
national black in which alone they look well, 
and try to imitate the French style, but with- 
out being able to copy the French taste, and 
neatness, and eye for colours. One sees the 
strangest and most ill - assorted colours and 
modes worn by Spanish women, but if a travel- 
ler appears in plain black, yet wearing a bonnet, 
or carrying an umbrella to shade her from the 
sun, she is saluted on all sides with ' Francese ! 
Francese ! ' 4 Paris ! ' 4 No, no, es Inglese ! ' 6 No, 
Francese ! ' 

On this particular night, however, I must 
admit I saw many very pretty dresses, but all 
fitter for a private ball-room, than a public 
garden where all classes meet on terms of 
equality, and peer jostles peasant. The fire- 
works were very beautiful, and we had more 



MADRID. 



273 



fire than was intended ; for, during the bom- 
bardment of a fort which was to conclude 
the entertainment, the tent in which the con- 
cert had been given caught fire, and was 
burned to ashes. Had the accident hap- 
pened an hour earlier, the loss of life would 
have been terrible. As it was, no one seemed 
to care ; the fireworks went on, nobody moved. 
I heard some endeavours were made to stop 
the flames, but saw none ; apparently the tent 
was left to its fate. This entertainment was 
not over until past twelve o'clock ; yet I saw 
little children not three years old there, in the 
arms of their mothers or nurses. 

6 They take them everywhere ; you see little 
babies at the bull-fights,' said the interpreter, 
when I remarked the number of young children 
present. 

There was a bull-fight one Sunday while I 
was at Madrid, but of course I did not attend 
it. In the first place it was held on the Sab- 
bath ; in the second, I think English people 
are wrong when they cry out on the cruelty of 
a Spanish bull-fight, and yet sanction it by 
their presence. It must be a brutalising, de- 
moralising practice, as bull-baiting was found 



274 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



to be in England, and therefore put an end 
to, — as cock-fighting — still practised under the 
rose — ought to be. How can little children — 
accustomed from earliest infancy to see a bull 
rip up the entrails of a wretched horse, to clap 
their little hands with delight at the sight ; 
and to scream with joy when the matador is. 
wounded — grow up other than cruel. If I 
were an Englishman, I would never marry an 
English girl who had gone to see a bull-fight. 

I went, of course, to see the two picture 
galleries : one in the Calle de Alcala, the other 
in the handsome building through which one 
enters the botanic garden ; but my readers must 
not expect a detailed account of them from me. 
Few, except artists and art-critics, care for a 
catalogue of pictures, except when they go to 
visit a collection. I shall only mention one or 
two that struck me most. 

I was disappointed in the famous 6 El Tinoso ' 
by my favourite artist Murillo ; for the face of 
Santa Isabel of Hungary did not strike me as 
so expressive of tenderness as Mr. Eord says it 
is. Santa Isabel is washing the sore head of a 
ragged urchin, while others, equally diseased, 
stand by, awaiting their turn. There was a bad 



MADRID. 



275 



painting by some artist of no repute or fame, 
which touched me much more : 4 The Virgin 
weeping over the dead body of Christ.' The 
unutterable mother's agony of that sad face 
brought tears into my eyes as I looked at it, 
though I knew well how imperfect the colour- 
ing and shading were. But the 4 Dream ' * is 
exquisite. Never, surely, was sleep so well 
represented ; not only the very hand of El 
Patricio seems asleep, but the very air of the 
whole picture seems slumbrous. One forgets it 
is day as one looks at it, and longs to fall asleep, 
too. The sleep of the lady is equally sound ; 
yet how different her attitude and expression 
from that of her husband ! The Eoman senator 
has fallen asleep over a large book, which he 
still holds with one hand, while the other hangs 
loosely down in the very attitude of sleep. In 
his dream the Virgin Mary appears to him in 
the air, and points out the site of a church he 
is to build. She is so placed in the picture, that 
one can fancy she was beheld at the same 
moment by the sleeping lady in the back 
ground. The whole of this picture is exqui- 



* The Dream is by Murillo. 
t 2 



276 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

sitely painted ; I could have sat and studied it 
for days. The companion picture, where the 
senator explains his vision to the Pope, is not so 
beautiful to rny taste. The husband and wife 
are doing reverence to the Pontiff; and behind 
them, half in distance, half as it were in air — 
to mark it is an idea not yet realised — rises a 
church into which a procession is entering. 
This dream preceded the erection of Santa 
Maria la Mayor at Eome, under Pope Liberius, 
about the year 360. 

Another that pleased me greatly was a paint- 
ing of Philip II. on horseback, by Velasquez ; 
and there were several noble pictures by Mu- 
rillo, Zurbaro, Alonzo Cano, and other famous 
artists of the Spanish school, which interested 
me greatly. Among them a child Christ and 
Angels, by Murillo ; and another by the same 
artist, of a Virgin standing ; Christ appears 
above her in the air ; below her feet, cherubs 
wave lilies and palm branches. I noticed many 
others ; but a dry catalogue of pictures always 
seems to me a dull chapter in a book ; so I 
pass on from pictured men and women, to the 
living real ones ; only remarking, en passant, 
that many of the pictures were lumbered up 



MADRID. 



277 



one against the other in the musee of the 
Botanic Garden, and hung in places where they 
could not be seen properly, and that a great 
many were undergoing, or had undergone, the 
villainous process called restoration, and the 
whole musee was badly arranged, slovenly, and 
untidy. The Sculpture Gallery I could not see 
— it was closed ; and to have seen it I must 
have remained some days longer at Madrid, 
which neither suited my inclination nor my 
pocket. Hotels and travelling expenses are 
ruinous in Spain. So when, on the sixth morn- 
ing, I found my precious manuscripts, and Mr. 
Ford's entertaining guide-books had safely ar- 
rived — alas ! too late for me to profit by the 
latter — I left Madrid the next day. 

I did not see the inside of the royal palace ; 
I take small interest now in stately rooms, 
gildings, and decorations ; but when I read 
Mr. Ford's account of the splendid equestrian 
statue of Philip IY. on his war charger, in the 
garden, I regretted not having visited it. 

It does not signify where I travel, I am always 
told by the natives of every country I visit that 
this is 4 an annee exceptionel.' I was fortunate 
in having an exceptional year this time : for I 



278 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

neither suffered from the hot sun nor cold winds, 
for both of which Madrid is renowned, and my 
little thermometer seldom stood above 85° Fah- 
renheit. Even by Spaniards it is reckoned an 
unhealthy place, and I was warned against eat- 
ing so much fruit, and told there was a cholera 
peculiar to Madrid, which was of an unusually 
fatal nature. I paid no attention to the warning, 
knowing; well that no amount of fruit would do 
me harm ; and, considering I had no sleep at 
night, I was tolerably well while there, though I 
always felt exhausted ; and it was rather as a duty 
than a pleasure, that I went about sight-seeing. 

Once or twice I went in the evening to the 
Prado — the Champs Elysees of Madrid — where, 
on the innumerable chairs that line each side of 
the walk, it is the pleasure of its citizens to sit 
and gossip, and watch the promenaders. I was 
greatly vexed not to see one mantilla, and my 
prudish English ideas were shocked at seeing 
young ladies promenading about with their hus- 
bands, or fathers, in their gauze dresses, neck- 
laces, bracelets, &c. &c, dressed, in short ; as 
English women dress for a ball ; except that 
some gossamer lace, or muslin of thinnest kind, 
made a faint pretence of veiling their necks and 



MADRID. 



279 



arms in so public a place ; while young and old 
wore no covering on the head, or merely a lace 
veil, to which the unbecoming black silk scarf, 
pinned on above the comb, was sometimes added. 
I saw a few peasant women from the mountains 
attending on their foster-children ; for here, as 
in France, it is the fashion for mothers not to 
nurse their own infants ; whose neat white caps 
reminded me of France. Their costume was 
somewhat peculiar. They wore stuff or cotton 
tight-fitting gowns, made half high, and edged 
round the top with an imitation of coral or other 
large beads, and a broad sash tied behind, whose 
gaiety by no means harmonised with the sober 
coloured, common gowns, and white aprons ; 
others wore a neat light print, or stuff dress, 
made high to the neck ; a small white collar and 
cuffs to match, and a snowy muslin apron with 
two immense tabs frilled all round, and tied like 
a sash behind. What getting up and goffering 
those long rounded ends, above a yard long, 
must have taken ! The cap these girls wore 
was nearly square, about the length of a com- 
mon sheet of writing paper, and rather more 
than two-thirds of its breadth ; it was also made 
of muslin ; and frilled all round with a narrow 



280 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

goffed frill like the apron, and was put flat on 
the back of the head, as our servant girls in 
England wear their small round caps, so as to 
show the hair. Altogether, it was a very neat, 
pretty costume. I was told the first came from 
Galicia ; where these last girls came from, 
I could not learn. Everyone I asked, replied, 
4 Oh ! somewhere in the mountains ! J It is 
astonishing how often the inquiring traveller is 
disappointed in learning a thing by the in- 
souciance of the natives of a country! How 
often, both in France and Spain, I asked in vain 
for the name of a mountain or river of every- 
one I met ! 



281 



CHAPTEE XI. 

MADEID TO GEANADA. 

I left Madrid by the eight o'clock train for 
Venta di Cardenas, where, since the railroad 
goes no further, though the line is gradually 
advancing towards completion, one has to take 
the diligence to Granada. We arrived here by 
daylight, and there I realised the full horrors of 
Spanish travelling. There is no station house 
built as yet, though there is a station, and no 
accommodation for travellers after a night's 
journey, but a wretched venta, or inn, built of 
wood, where one may indeed get bad coffee, 
and something to eat ; but where one cannot 
get a clean towel to wash one's face with, or 
any other necessary comfort. Men and women 
were shown together into an unfurnished room, 
where, on the usual tripod washing stand com- 



282 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

mon in Spain, and which exactly represents the 
rounded tripod or altar often represented on 
Greek vases, stood two small basins, while two 
towels hung against the wall, to serve the whole 
party. I adventured into an inner room in 
search of privacy, and found a man asleep on a 
bed on the floor. May I never see Yenta di 
Cardenas again ! There were three diligences ; 
huge uncomfortable, lumbering vehicles, very 
inferior in comfort to the old French diligence, 
drawn by seven and nine mules or horses. 
Into the rotunda of one of these, the Madridi- 
lena, I was put, with Keeper on my knee ; and 
three other persons, a very stout man, a cadave- 
rous miserable looking man, who was always 
mopping his face, and a soldier, soon filled the 
rotunda completely ; so completely we could 
not stir but by each other's leave. We 
started. The road, which is a very good one, 
almost equalling some of the French Pyrenean 
roads, was made by Charles III. and winds 
through a mountain gorge, passing through 
many little towns. After awhile I noticed that 
we passed several soldiers, solitary, or two or 
three in number at most ; some on foot, some on 
horseback, and clearly patrolling the road ; and 



MADRID TO GRANADA. 



283 



at every few miles were small military stations. 
At one of them, two soldiers clambered up on 
the outside of the diligence, one on each side 
of our rotunda, which is the hinder part of the 
vehicle, and two more mounted in front. It 
looked really alarming — and I began to think 
there must still be brigands in Spain ; and that I 
should actually have that adventure with them, 
which my publisher, Mr. Bentley, thought would 
■ tell so well in my book,' if each diligence, and 
all three followed close after each other, needed 
four armed men to protect its mails and pas- 
sengers. But as my companions laughed at, 
and scouted the idea of brigands in these days, 
I also became sceptical and philosophical on the 
subject, and began to muse on the natural history 
of Spanish soldiers, omnibus conductors, and 
mayors, or coachmen. Are they born with 
suckers to their feet, like flies ? or is cobbler's 
wax applied to the soles of their hempen al- 
pargatas, or espardines ? How those soldiers 
managed to cling on to the diligence, encum- 
bered as they were by their long guns, for hours ; 
was a marvel to me. Greatly, also, did I mar- 
vel when it was my fate to occupy the coupe, or 
banquette, at the extraordinary manner in which 



284 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

the mayor hung when not seated on his high 
and extraordinary iron seat. 

Among the towns, La Carolina, one of the 
newly erected ones, most attracted my atten- 
tion ; not for its beauty, but because of its two 
Frenchified high-roofed square towers at either 
end, and because it has a little verdure around, 
a few trees and gardens just on the outside ; 
but the rest of the road is wild, savage, and 
sombre. Little vegetation, and few trees, and 
those few of stunted growth ; clothe the sides 
of those dreary mountains ; and yet I, who 
like wild scenery, enjoyed the traversing these 
mountains. But my enjoyment did not last 
long. No rain seems ever to fall in Spain, at 
least I have never seen any except on the 
evening I travelled towards Madrid ; the clouds 
of dust raised by the diligences were something 
wonderful. I never saw the like ; as the day 
wore on towards noon, the heat became terrific, 
yet we could not open a window for those clouds 
of dust. At last, human nature could stand it 
no longer. The fat man withdrew the hand- 
kerchief from his moon-like countenance and 
opened a window, then the lean man left off 
mopping his face and opened one on his side ; 



MADRID TO GRANADA. 



285 



as to me, I sat passive, leaving my three com- 
panions to shut or open them at their pleasure. 
Soon the sun's rays burnt fiercer, and I was 
forced to let down that at my side, that poor 
Keeper, who sat on my knee, might loll his head 
out for a little air ; and now I had a proof of 
Spanish want of courtesy, and selfishness. First 
the fat man, and then the lean man, objected 
to my window being open ; it let in the dust. 
I had said nothing of all the dust their two 
open windows let in. I simply replied, 6 1 
must be allowed to have it open on account of 
the dog,' and wearied by my long journey, I 
fell asleep. I was awakened by a violent pain 
at the back and top of my head, as if red-hot 
knitting needles were running into it ; and look- 
ing for the cause, discovered, that although the 
sun was on my side, or rather exactly opposite 
the back of my head, my companions had 
availed themselves of my sleep to shut the 
windows behind themselves, and open the two 
at my back. I insisted on one, that nearest me, 
being shut. 4 We shall be smothered,' said the 
fat man, placing his handkerchief again over his 
head — 6 es caliente ! ' 4 We cannot bear it closed,' 
said the miserable man, mopping himself. 4 1 



286 OVEE THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

cannot bear the sun, it will give ixie a coup de 
soleil,' said I. e The sun ! Ah ! but the sun is on 
our side.' ' Pardon me,' said I, touching, as I 
spoke, the top of the rotunda which was burn- 
ing hot on my side, and cool on theirs, 4 touch 
the top of the diligence, and you will feel it is 
on mine by the heat.' No one would touch it, 
for no one wished to be convinced. The fat 
man sat winking at the soldier to close it un- 
known to me ; he put out his hand. 6 Pardon 
me,' said I, 6 1 cannot allow it ; I have not in- 
terfered about the windows, but left you all to 
do as you chose with them till the heat became 
insupportable ; touch the roof and you will see 
I am reasonable.' JSTo one would. The fat man 
still, every now and then withdrew the pocket- 
handkerchief from his rubicund visage, and put- 
ting on the most piteous aspect, as if he were the 
most oppressed of mortals, winked to the soldier 
to open the window stealthily, and I kept a 
dragon watch over it. The lean mau groaned 
audibly. Wearied at length by this mute con- 
tention, I took the soldier's hand and laid it on 
the top of my bonnet, which was burning hot. 
4 Es caliente,' said he, shaking his head at the fat 
man, 6 Es mas caliente ! ' and he made no further 



MADEID TO GRANADA. 



287 



attempt to put down the persienne or wooden 
blind ; for the diligences in Spain have both glass 
windows and persiennes, on account of the heat. 

As to the dust, I scarcely think the simoom 
of the desert could be much worse. The black 
coats of my two companions, and my black 
dress, became first Oxford mixture, then ashen 
grey. At first we all tried to keep ourselves 
decent, and shook off the dust, but it was a more 
hopeless task than that of Sysiphus, and we 
resigned ourselves to our fate. Even the very 
folds of the neckties of the two men opposite 
me, were full of dust, you might have taken it 
up with a spoon ; their shirt fronts — whilome 
white, were now — I will not say what, with 
heat and powder ; the fat man withdrew the 
handkerchief, that veiled his beauty from too in- 
discreet gazers, from his face, looked at it rue- 
fully, and smeared, I will not say wiped his 
forehead ; flung it over his head again, and threw 
himself back in his corner with a gesture of 
despair. The miserable man ruefully looked at 
his wet, grey shirt, I thought he was going to 
cry over it ; and exclaimed in his agony, in a 
compound of the languages of every country 
he had travelled in ;— 6 J'ai voyage en Italia, en 



283 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN, 



Alleraagna. Ich habe bin in Engeland. Yiaggiare 
in quelle paese, c'est agreable, ma viaggiare in 
Espagna, es penitenzia !' ' Purgatorio,' suggested 
I, e it ought to be reckoned to us as part of Pur- 
gatory.' 'Ah, es penitenzia!' he groaned once 
more, mopped his head, and sank back in his 
seat utterly exhausted. 

It was late in the day when we reached Jaen, 
whose name is pronounced like half of a k 
added to ch — somewhat like the ch in the 
Scottish word loch. It is difficult for a stranger 
to learn to say K'ham and K'hulian or K'-huan 
as the Spaniards do, and to my ears K'-huan 
was not half so soft as Juan or Giovanni, or 
Yacoob, as Germans call the patriarch. There 
is a small square plaza planted with trees, with 
a fountain in the midst, in front of which was 
the venta, where the diligences stopped to 
change horses, and refresh the inner man ; and 
from hence one has a good view of a very sin- 
gular handsome-looking cathedral,* which I 

* Mr. Ford says, the cathedral at Jaen is not of Moorish 
origin ; hut all the architecture of this part of Spain appears 
to me, who am, alas ! an ignoramus, as regards architecture, 
and only judge hy the eye ; to he in a great degree copied from 
that of the Moors. It is only natural that traces of their taste 
should remain in the buildings of a country they so long occu- 
pied, and so magnificently adorned. 



MADRID TO GRANADA. 



289 



could not help thinking was originally a Moorish 
mosque, so oriental-looking are its rounded 
dome, and rounded minarets tapering up to a 
point above. Of course I had no time to visit 
it as I should have liked. A Moorish castle on 
the hill above, overhangs the town ; and Moorish 
walls and towers follow the slopes of the moun- 
tains. These towers are always picturesque ; 
their yellow-ochre hue, harmonises well with 
the tawny colouring of the ground below and 
around them, and they combine with the rocks, 
and trees, and mountains, to give to Spain the 
peculiar and distinguishing tone, and colour, and 
character ; which, now that I have seen it, would 
make me, I think, recognise the smallest water- 
colour sketch of a little bit of one of its sierras ; 
as I once, in an exhibition, recognised instantly 
a small study of rocky moor, by Hunt, no bigger 
than my hand, and without any peculiar feature, 
house, or tree, or mountain, or ghyll, to be taken 
at the pass of Kirks tone. 

I wonder whether this indescribable difference 
of colouring, in atmosphere and trees, sky and 
earth, in different lands, strikes other people as 
strongly as it does me. It is like the difference 
between human faces. Every human being has 



290 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

hair, and forehead, eyes, and nose, and mouth, 
and chin ; but how unlike is man to man, and 
woman to woman ! Each has an indescribable 
personality which the pencil only can depict. I 
do not wonder the ancients personified coun- 
tries ; if I were a painter, I should depict Spain 
as a tawny black-browed woman, sitting on a 
panther. 

At Jaen, the soldier and the miserable man 
got out, and their place was filled by a pretty 
donna with her little girl ; but alas ! the fat man, 
who took up most space, remained, and we went 
on stewing as in a cauldron, unable to move a 
limb, without each other's permission ; so closely 
were we crammed in that small rotunda, till 
nightfall ; when we stopped at a venta or inn, to 
get something to eat. I detest Spanish dili- 
gences, but Spanish ventas are greatly prefer 
able to Spanish railway stations. One is shown 
into a clean-looking room, and after waiting 
about a quarter of an hour, and sallying forth 
into the corridor, where one generally finds 
a row of men washing and brushing, some 
six or seven times, and calling out impatiently 
for 6 agua, toalla,' and hearing indignantly the 
never-failing ' ora, ora ' (by-and-by) ; one can 



MADRID TO GRANADA. 



291 



have the luxury of soap and water ; if, like me, 
you always carry the first article in your pocket ; 
while at the railway stations there is no comfort 
of any sort for female passengers. As to the 
food, I cannot speak so favourably. Spanish 
cooking, and Spanish meat is detestable : from 
the dish-water soup, the cold fried-fish, and the 
bouilli, like skeins of coarse worsted, cut into 
long pieces ; to the measly-looking, coarse pork, 
also cut into pieces; and served up on a bed 
of dry chicliaras or chickpeas — a large, round, 
dry pea, as good as our English dried peas would 
be, boiled whole ; which, Mr. Ford says, was the 
favourite national dish of the Carthaginians : 
as it seems to be of their descendants, to this 
day. The chickpea — fit, in effect, for nothing 
but chickens, or rather fowls ; for it would 
certainly choke the chicks from its size and 
hardness, even when boiled — is also called gar- 
banza. When my travelling companions sat 
down to supper or dinner, I generally tried to 
get fruit to eat with the bread, which is always 
good In Spain ; but it is the fashion in Spain, as 
in France, to serve every plat or dish sepa- 
rately, handing in turn to every one, and fruit is 
always the last; and a Spanish waiter or waitress, 



292 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

— the last is the most difficult to get anything 
from — has no idea of obeying orders, never 
conceives even the idea, that a person entering 
an inn has a right to demand any fare there is, 
that suits his appetite, when he means to pay 
for it. In Spain you can't cry 6 Waiter, bring 
me a cup of coffee, or a plate of grapes ; I am 
unwell, and cannot eat meat.' You must wait 
till it pleases that waiter to bring it ; and as 
fruit was invariably served last, at all these 
ventas, I had no chance of a meal ; for scarcely 
had it made its appearance, when the mayoral 
called us to resume our places in the diligence ; 
and then, I was charged more than my com- 
panions who had dined or supped, for the dinner 
or supper I had not eaten. I suppose I was 
mulcted as punishment for scorning Spanish 
fare. 

About three a.m. we reached Granada, and 
my heart beat quicker ; — the dream of my 
childhood was about to be realised — I should 
see the Alhambra ! 

I had but troubled sleep, tired — deadly tired 
as I was. The moment I closed my eyes the bites 
of insects awoke me. It was a relief when day 



MADRID TO GRANADA. 



293 



dawned ; and I arose unrefreshed and feverish, 
as I always rise now in Spain, for want of 
slumber ; but the thought that I was in Granada 
consoled rne : I should see the Alhambra that 
very day. I found, however, on descending, 
that I could not see the Alhambra without per- 
mission, and that a guide was necessary. I de- 
sired both might be in readiness for the morrow, 
and strolled out until breakfast should be ready 
at eleven o'clock. This is another serious in- 
convenience to English travellers, used to com- 
fortable England, and to four comfortable meals 
a-day. Spaniards have but two repasts in the 
day, and the traveller has no more, however 
high the terms charged at the hotels. One can 
indeed order coffee or tea ; (without milk, be it 
understood, for there is no milk to be got in 
any part of Spain I have yet visited, except in 
Madrid, where it is very dear ; but goats' milk, 
whose abominable flavour I cannot endure) but 
then one must also pay for this early breakfast 
as much as for that at the table d'hote, or rather 
more, since it is an extra trouble to prepare it. 
So, not having any money to spare in a country 
where travelling and living were both so dear, I 



294 OYER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



fell into the ways of the natives ; but, ah ! how I 
often longed for a good English breakfast, when 
I arose, worn out and feverish, with a sleepless 
night. 



•295 



CHAPTEE XII. 

GRANADA AND THE ALHAMBRA. 

My inn was in a line with the Prado or public 
walk. I first went there. I can hardly convey 
to my readers even a faint impression of its ex- 
ceeding beauty. For some distance it is merely 
a long walk, shaded by trees with seats beneath 
them, and flanked by buildings on either side ; a 
little higher up, the trees are larger, and full 
grown ; elegant marble fountains decorate the 
spaces between them ; and gardens full of lovely 
rose-coloured oleanders and other gay flowers 
replace the rows of houses on either side. I 
walked slowly up this beautiful walk; now 
stopping to admire the rich hue of the laurier 
rose, now the graceful marble basins, till the 
Sierra Nevada rose between the trees before my 



296 OYER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

enchanted eyes. Then I stood, literally breath- 
less. Never had I seen anything so dazzlingly 
beautiful. Just imagine, if you can, a grove of 
fine old elms ; white marble fountains sending 
up jets of water that sparkle like diamonds in 
the morning sun, oleanders as tall as young 
apple-trees, with stems as thick as a man's arm, 
and a. crown of rose-coloured flowers ; while the 
long vista formed by the trees, is bounded by a 
range of sky-blue hills, deepening here and there, 
in cleft or hollow, into shades of ultramarine or 
indigo ; and crowned with eternal snow. That 
is Granada. Turn round, and look behind you. 
A long, long vista of triple rows of trees, behind 
and between which, apparently, rise foreign- 
looking white houses, with green jalousies and 
arches, and above them Moorish-looking towers, 
unlike any church towers you ever saw out of 
Spain ; and over all such a bright clear blue sky. 
That, too, is Granada. 

Let me quote for your further edification, a 
part of the beautiful description of Washington 
Irving. 

' The city of Granada lay in the centre of the 
kingdom, sheltered as it were in the lap of the 
Sierra Nevada, a chain of snowy mountains. It 



GRANADA AND THE ALHAMBRA. 297 



covered two lofty hills, and a deep valley that 
divides them, through which flows the river 
Darro. One of these hills was crowned by the 
royal palace and fortress of the Alhambra, cap- 
able of containing forty thousand men within its 
walls and towers. There is a Moorish tradition 
that the king who built this mighty pile was 
skilled in the occult sciences, and furnished him- 
self with gold and silver for the purpose, by 
means of alchemy. Certainly there never was 
an edifice accomplished in a more superior style 
of barbaric* magnificence, and the stranger who 
even at the present day wanders among its 
silent and deserted courts, and ruined halls, 
gazes with astonishment at its gilded and fretted 
domes, and luxuriant decorations, still retaining 
their brilliancy and beauty, in defiance of the 
ravages of time. 

' Opposite to the hill on which stood the 
Alhambra, was its rival hill, on the summit of 
which was a spacious plain covered with houses, 
and crowded with inhabitants. It was com- 
manded by a fortress called the Alcazaba. The 

* I do not see how Washington Irving could apply the term 
barbaric to these exquisite halls. In no European palace have 
I ever seen anything to equal the beauty of the Hall of the 
Ambassadors, the Sala de Justicia, and the boudoir of the Sultana. 



298 OYEK THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

declivities and skirts of these hills were covered 
with houses, to the number of seventy thou- 
sand, separated by narrow streets and small 
squares, according to the custom of Moorish 
cities. The houses had interior courts and 
gardens, refreshed by fountains and running 
streams, and set out with oranges, citrons, and 
pomegranates ; so that as the edifices of the city 
rose above each other on the sides of the hill, 
they presented a mingled appearance of city 
and grove delightful to the eye. The whole 
was surrounded by high walls, three leagues in 
circuit, with twelve gates, and fortified by a 
thousand and thirty towers. The elevation of 
the city and the neighbourhood of the Sierra 
Nevada, crowned with perpetual snows, tem- 
pered the fervid rays of summer ; and thus, 
while other cities were panting with the sultry 
and stifling heat of the dog-days, the most 
salubrious breezes played through the marble 
halls of Granada. 

c The glory of the city, however, was its vega, 
or plain, which spread out to a circumference 
of thirty-seven leagues, surrounded by lofty 
mountains. It was a vast garden of delight, 
refreshed by numerous fountains, and by the 



GRANADA AND THE ALHAMBRA. 299 



silver windings of the Xenil. The labour and 
ingenuity of the Moors had diverted the waters 
of this river into thousands of rills and streams, 
and diffused them over the whole surface of the 
plain. Indeed, they had wrought up this happy 
region to a degree of wonderful prosperity, and 
took a pride in decorating it, as if it had been a 
favourite mistress. The hills were clothed with 
orchards and vineyards, the valleys embroidered 
with gardens, and the wide plain covered with 
waving grain. Here were seen in profusion the 
orange, the citron, the fig, the pomegranate, 
with large plantations of mulberry-trees, from 
which was produced the finest of silk. The vine 
clambered from tree to tree, the grapes hung in 
rich clusters about the peasant's cottage, and the 
groves were rejoiced by the perpetual song of 
the nightingale. In a word, so beautiful was 
earth, so pure the air, and so serene the sky of 
this delicious region, that the Moors imagined 
the paradise of their prophet to be situate in 
that part of the heaven which overhung the 
kingdom of Granada.' 

Such is Washington Irving's account of Gra- 
nada's pristine glory, extracted by him from old 
Spanish authors. 



SCO OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

What is it now ? 

I found it a town of dirty, narrow streets, in- 
habited by a dirty, vulgar population. The two 
rivers, no longer carefully shaded by trees, run 
nearly dry in their beds ; the channels and aque- 
ducts made to convey water to all parts of the 
plain by the Moors, are all nearly choked up ; 
only a few of the marble fountains now play ; 
and the once fertile plain stretches out to the 
eye, bare and desolate. Of the Alhambra, only 
a small part of the summer palace remains. The 
Vandal king, Charles V., pulled down the 
whole of the winter palace, in order to erect a 
hideous square pile, in what Mr. Ford calls 4 the 
Grseco-Eomano Bramante style' — whatever that 
may be ; a huge gloomy palace, with oblong 
square, London-like, windows, ornamented with 
heavy, ugly, basso-relievos, that he had never 
means to complete ; which is still roofless ; the 
ugliness and heaviness of whose unfinished ruins 
contrast strangely with the immortal beauty and 
lightness of the Alhambra — exquisite, in spite of 
ill-usage and decay. 

My readers must not expect from me a topo- 
graphical account of this Moorish wonder. I 
only visited it once, for it is now shut up from 



GRANADA AND THE ALHAMBKA. 301 



the public ; the Spanish Government, with late 
repentance, after having made it a barrack and 
a prison, being engaged in restoring it ; and 
then I was accompanied by a guide. I had no 
fault to find with him, but all guides and cice- 
rones are odious people, and hurry one through 
every place, so that one has no time to take notes. 
To thoroughly enjoy these silent halls, one must 
have been free to visit them alone at all hours, 
to walk in the shimmering moonlight along the 
marble courts, and look at the sun setting in gold 
and purple over the mountains of Granada, from 
the boudoir of the Sultana. I applied to the 
officer in command of the Alhambra, telling 
him I was an English writer, for permission to 
wander at my leisure through its halls, and re- 
ceived from him a most courteous reply, regret- 
ing that superior orders prevented his admitting 
any one within its walls after six o'clock, but 
according me permission to visit it at any hour 
in the day. Of this permission I never once 
availed myself, for the simple reason that I dared 
not. I never showed myself in the streets of 
Granada without being followed by a rabble of 
all ranks, apparently, and all ages ; hooted, and 
insulted. I walked the evening after my arrival 



302 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



in the town, along the Prado, between six and 
seven in the evening, where the whole popula- 
tion of the town, from the rich and fashionable, 
to the poor water-carrier and fruit- woman, are 
accustomed to promenade till ten or eleven 
o'clock at night. I was plainly dressed in black, 
with a white straw bonnet (which I had worn 
in Paris) tied down with black also. All ranks 
of people insulted me. One young officer in 
regimentals, who was walking arm-in-arm with 
a friend, came close up to me, stared me rudely 
in the face, and addressed me in the most in- 
sulting language. I looked at him steadily and 
said, ' Monsieur, je suis etonne qu'une personne 
d'education peut insulter une dame. Je suis une 
auteur anglaise, et cela sera connu de tout le 
monde.' He turned on his heel, and slunk away 
without a word of apology, like a beaten hound. 

What had I done to provoke all this hostility? 
I simply walked out the morning after my ar- 
rival, with my dog in a chain, being fearful of 
losing him, as he did not know the place, and 
I had been warned by the landlord of the inn 
at Madrid that English dogs were valuable in 
Spain ; and that if I did not wish to have him 
stolen, I must take him out with me in leash. 



GRANADA AND THE ALHAMBRA. fi03 

But the real truth is, the Spaniards are in- 
hospitable by nature, and hate strangers. 

A young Englishman of high family, an inti- 
mate friend of my friend, Mrs. Brotherton, the 
well-known writer for ' Temple Bar ' and most 
of the popular magazines of the day ; and the 
authoress of the clever and successful novel 
entitled c Eespectable Sinners,' travelled also in 
Spain some years ago. How did they treat 
him ? Exactly as they treated me ! 

He was a very clever, a very elegant, and a 
very handsome young man ; but he was much 
out of health, and out of spirits. In Madrid the 
people in the streets used to hoot him, and they 
even followed him to his hotel, shouting and 
yelling ; and calling him 4 the knight of the 
rueful countenance.' 

To return to the Alhambra. I can compare 
the carvings on the walls to nothing but the 
finest point lace. If actual point lace were laid 
upon a flat wall, the effect would be somewhat 
similar, only that the patterns would want the 
depth and shadow given by the chisel. 

During the period of its degradation, large 
portions of this exquisite carving were torn 
down from the walls and sold to visitors. This 



304 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

is now being restored ; and to me it appeared 
that the work of restoration is beautifully done ; 
the modern carving, harmonising perfectly with 
the old. The most singular part of the Al- 
hambra are its ceilings. They resemble those 
of no other building, and the moment I saw 
them they reminded me of the roof of a curious 
cave in Yorkshire on the Kendal road, which is 
covered with pendant stalactites. Mr. Ford 
calls them 4 the honeycomb stalactical pendants,' 
and says 'they are all constructed on mathe- 
matical principles ; they are composed of nume- 
rous prisms, united by their contiguous lateral 
surfaces, consisting of seven different forms 
proceeding from three primary figures on plane; 
these are the right-angled triangle, the rectangle, 
and the isosceles triangle. The various com- 
ponent parts are capable of an infinite variety 
of combination, as infinite as the melodies which 
may be produced from the seven notes of the 
musical scale. The conical ceilings in the 
Alhambra attest the wonderful power and effect 
obtained by the repetition of the most simple 
elements. Nearly five thousand pieces enter 
into the construction of the ceiling of 4 Las dos 
Hermanas' (the Hall of the Two Sisters), and 



GRANADA AND THE ALHAMBRA. 305 



although they are simply plaster, strengthened 
here and there with pieces of reed, they are in 
the most perfect preservation ; but the carpentry 
of the Phoenicians passed down to the Moor. 
These houses, " ceiled with cedar and painted 
with vermilion " (Jer. xxii. 14), are exactly 
those of the ancient Egyptians (Wilk. ii. 127).'* 
These pendants end (as it appeared to me) 
in small hollows, like an oyster-shell, and the 
interior of each of these, as well as the outer 
sides of each pendant, are painted in brilliant 
colours, red, blue, and white, and edged with 
gold. The Moorish Court at the Crystal Palace, 
beautiful as it is in itself, gives no idea of the 
effect of these ceilings. Interspersed among the 
point-lace carvings on the walls, are Moorish 
inscriptions, quotations from the Koran, heraldic 
mottoes, and coats of arms. Sometimes the 
point-lace carving is relieved by colour, like a 
lace curtain over azure silk or crimson ; but 
whether coloured or not, the exquisite harmony 
of hues and decoration, the perfect symmetry 

* Mr. Ford and his wife spent two summers in the Alham- 
bra at the time when strangers were permitted to reside there. 
He had, therefore, ample opportunities for studying its archi- 
tecture, and to his true and graphic 1 Handbook for Spain/ I 
refer my readers. 

X 



306 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

of the whole, is always the same. Nothing 
strikes the eye as inharmonious, gaudy, or out of 
place ; and the slender Moorish reed-like pillars, 
and the rounded arches, have a delicacy and 
lightness, that are in perfect keeping with that 
most exquisite tracery. In one chamber, the roof 
was pierced with deep-cut stars. These, in the 
time of the Moors, were filled with glass ; they 
are now open to the weather ; but the effect 
of the light shining down through them is 
magical. In the Courts are yet a few myrtles 
and orange-trees, and I plucked a small spray 
of myrtle for Mrs. Brotherton, and an orange- 
leaf for myself, as a memento of the Alhambra ; 
but ah ! how different they are to what they 
were in the times of the Moors, or might so 
easily be made now. To complete the work 
of restoration, the hideous unfinished palace of 
Charles V. should be pulled down ; the foun- 
tains in the Court of Lions, and all the other 
fountains play once more, and each Court should 
be filled with scarlet geraniums, sweet-scented 
clematis, and mignonette, myrtles, oleanders, 
pomegranates, cacti, and other gorgeous flowers. 
The twelve famous lions in the celebrated Court 
of the Lions, are very mythological or heraldic 



GRANADA AND THE ALHAMBRA. 307 

animals, so little like lions are they ; but its co- 
lonnades, its arches, and the little bit of greenery 
still there — where doubtless, in the Moorish 
reign, were quantities of gorgeous and sweet- 
scented flowers — made it very beautiful, though 
the fountain did not play. Of course I was 
shown in the hall of the Abencerrages, which 
opens on the Court of Lions, the marble fountain 
on whose brink tradition tells, that Boabdil el 
Chico, the last Moorish king, caused six-and- 
thirty of the Abencerrages to be beheaded, at 
the instigation of their enemies, the rival family 
of Zegri, who accused one of them, Aben-hamet 
Abencerrage, of an intrigue with the Sultana. 

The tale says, they were enticed one by one 
into the hall, and after beholding for awhile the 
bloody corpses of their kinsmen, were in their 
turn decapitated, till the fountain was full of 
human heads, and the hall strewed with muti- 
lated bodies. But Washington Irving and others, 
whose lengthened stay in Spain, and knowledge 
of Spanish, permitted them to consult the best 
Spanish authorities, say that this story is a pure 
fiction, nowhere to be met in history, and rest- 
ing solely upon the authority of a work entitled 
6 The Civil Wars of Granada,' written towards 



308 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

the close of the sixteenth century, by Gines 
Perez de Hita, who professed to have translated 
it from an Arabian manuscript, and which is 
interspersed with most of the popular Moorish 
and Castilian romantic ballads. Irving states, 
however, that Muley Aben Hassan, Muley Abul 
Ha^en, as Prescott calls him, Boabdil's ferocious 
father, did put a number of the Abencerrages 
to death, not however for any love affair, but 
for an imaginary intrigue against his sovereignty. 
However, my guide showed me the blood-stain 
on the fountain, which nothing can efface ; and 
recounted the old romance. As a girl, I had a 
religious faith in this story, and one feels sorry 
to have one's faith in any romantic ballad de- 
stroyed. But the real cause of the downfall of 
the Moors, appears to have been their domestic 
dissensions, and internal strifes. Three kings 
claimed, and in turn ruled Granada at one 
time — Muley Aben Hassan, the rightful mon- 
arch, his son Boabdil, whom he drove to rebel- 
lion by attempting his life ; and his brother El 
Zagal ; while the Christians combining their 
forces, were naturally the strongest. 

It is to the admiration of strangers that 
the Alhambra owes its restoration. When the 



GRANADA AND THE ALHAMBRA. 309 

Spaniards found that the first inquiry of every 
traveller was for the Alhambra — the Alham- 
bra, the one object which principally induced 
foreigners to visit Spain, they slowly began to 
understand its inestimable value as a national 
monument. 

The hill on which the Alhambra stands is 
shaded by trees, whose thickly interlaced boughs 
effectually keep out the noonday sun, and tra- 
versed by numberless alleys, while here and there 
a handsome marble fountain, placed there by the 
Moors, but playing no longer, attests how charm- 
ing a retreat it must once have been. The Moors 
knew how to combine shade with gaiety and 
brightness ; then, no doubt, gay flowers enlivened 
these walls, and filled the air with perfume, but 
the trees they planted have long been cut down; 
a dark wood of oaks and elms, whose trunks 
show they are of no great age, replace them, 
and the ground beneath is covered with a thick 
matting of brambles, woodgrass, and ivy. It 
has a weird, dreary, desolate look, and one could 
easily fancy the ghosts of the dispossessed Moors 
still haunt and cast an evil spell — the gloomy 
shadow of their great despair, when driven from 
it — over the place. Well might the ill-fated 



310 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



Boabdil weep for Granada. No words can 
express the beautiful view from the Sultana's 
boudoir and other openings in the palace ; of the 
wide outstretching plain ; now brown and bare- 
looking ; but in that time, covered with vine- 
yards, orchards, gardens, and corn-fields ; and 
the varied and grand mountains that girdle it 
round, as with a natural wall. 

In all this walk, the guide was by my side ; 
but though I was no longer alone, the hootings 
and yellings of the stall-keepers in the streets, 
and the children, were as persistent as ever. It 
is not, therefore, because I am alone, that I am 
exposed to insults in Spain ; it is because the 
Spaniards- are at present a half-civilised, semi- 
barbarous race, just as Mrs. Broth erton's friend 
said they were, when he visited them ten or 
twelve years ago. 



311 



CHAPTEE XIII. 

GRANADA. — SPANISH MANNERS. — GENERALIFE. 

To-day, at the table d'hote dinner, the conversa- 
tion fell upon Spain. One of my neighbours, a 
Spaniard, asked ine what I thought of the 
^ country. I replied the country was beautiful ; 
but I did not like the people. 4 Ah ! ' said a 
Spaniard opposite, 'I travelled with you to 
Granada. You expect too much. You must 
conform to the ways of the country you are in. 
I am a Spaniard, and you pained me much by 
the way you spoke of Spain.' 

' I speak as I find,' was my reply. 4 When I 
cannot go out in the streets without being in- 
sulted, it is no wonder I blame them.' 

4 Ah ! but,' returned he, 'you expect too much. 
For instance, you were angry because they 
would not bring you fruit at the venta where we 



312 OYER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



stopped to sup. Now, it is the custom of the 
country to bring one dish at a time, so you ought 
to have waited till the fruit came.' 

'Yes,' said I, 'but you forget, we had but 
half an hour to sup in, before remounting the 
diligence. You and the others supped off the fare 
set before you, and to you the fruit was merely 
a dessert, but I could not eat the food on the 
table. I had travelled all day and the night pre- 
vious, and I had had nothing since I left Madrid 
at eight the night before, but a piece of 
bread I brought with me, and one small cup of 
coffee. I wanted food, and what was the use of 
fruit, and wine, and bread, being brought me, 
at the close of your repast, when there was no 
longer time to eat them before the diligence 
started? There were plenty of attendants ; one 
of the girls, had she been civil as the attendants 
in French and English inns are, might have 
brought me the fruit and bread I asked for, 
at once, without the slightest inconvenience to 
herself.' My Spaniard was shut up. He said no 
more on that head, but after awhile resumed. 

4 Then for the insults you meet in the streets, 
Madame, permit me to say it is your own fault, 
for coming alone to Spain. Our women do not 



GRANADA. 



313 



travel or walk about alone, and your doing so ex- 
poses you to insult. This is certainly your fault.' 

4 Not at all, Senor. When I came into Spain, 
I imagined I was coining into a civilised 
country. I am, as you see, no longer a young 
woman. I do not dress to look young, but 
wear my own grey hair. I travelled alone as a 
young woman in France and Germany, and met 
no insult. I expected a woman of my age, who 
conducted herself with modesty and propriety, 
a grey-haired woman no longer young, and 
plainly and quietly dressed ; might travel in 
any country with safety : and remember, I do not 
come for pleasure, but as a duty. My profes- 
sion is that of a writer ; my last work on France 
was very favourably received by the public, and 
my publisher asked me to write a similar tour 
in Spain. It was my duty to accept the offer, 
and to labour in the field God appointed me.' 

4 Well,' remarked the other, 4 at all events, I 
hope you will not abuse Spain in your book.' 

4 1 mean to abuse it heartily, Senor ; and let 
me tell you, those are not the worst friends to a 
people who tell them of their faults. A hundred 
years ago, everything was thrown out of the 
windows at nightfall in Lisbon, and a hundred 



314 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

and fifty years ago, as I have read, it was not 
much, better in our British city of Edinburgh. 
Travellers remarked in their books on these 
filthy practices, and they were put an end to in 
both cities. Those who point out a nation's 
defects, benefit that nation.' 

' At least, I hope you will admit there are 
gentlemen in Spain. If some have insulted you, 
all have not done so. Surely you will admit there 
are gentlemen in the country.' 

6 Certainly I will admit it, and instead of be- 
ing, as you think, prejudiced against Spaniards, 
I came to Spain, greatly prejudiced in their 
favour. The few Spanish gentlemen I had met 
in London had been nearly all very gentlemen- 
like, highly-polished men, and I had been early 
familiar with Don Quixote. I expected courtesy 
was the attribute of the Spaniard, not that I 
should everywhere be insulted. I shall say that 
no woman ought to travel in Spain alone.' 

' Well, but remember everybody has not in- 
sulted you, and I hope you will acknowledge in 
your book that there are still gentlemen in 
Spain ; and perhaps if ycu stayed longer, and 
could speak our language well, you would like 
Spain and Spaniards better.' 



GKANADA. 



315 



4 1 should be sorry to condemn all Spaniards, 
but I still maintain that any country is only half 
civilised where a respectable, modest, quietly- 
dressed woman, no longer young, cannot walk 
alone, and I shall advise no woman ever to visit 
Spain alone, in my book.' 

4 In that you will do right ; no woman should 
travel alone in Spain. It is not our custom that 
they should. You will do quite right to say 
that.' 

4 Yes, quite right ; women should not travel 
alone in Spain, Senora,' chorused the others, as 
my late fellow traveller rose, bowed, and with- 
drew, as did all the other guests except a young 
man ; he now began in his turn. 

' What the gentleman said is true, Madame. 
I am an Englishman, and have now lived many 
years in Spain. I like the Spaniards, and have 
received very great kindness from them. If you 
stayed longer in Spain, and knew them better, 
you would find much to like in them, but you 
must first learn to speak their language, to dress 
as they dress, and adopt their habits ; you must, 
in short, become one of " Nosotros," that is, one 
of ourselves, and then you would find them very 
kind.' 



316 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

' I don't think it shows much kindness when 
a modest, quiet, well-behaved, plainly- dressed 
woman, already grey-haired, cannot walk the 
streets in peace, free from personal insult.' 

'But then, Madame, you have yourself to 
blame for running counter to Spanish customs 
and prejudices. It is not usual for Spanish 
ladies to walk out alone ; they never travel alone ; 
you do, and must take the consequences.' 

' I have told you that I am a writer, just as 
you are a merchant, and I must labour in my 
profession. I did not come for idle pleasure, 
and I neither dress in any peculiar manner, nor 
misconduct myself in any way. To say that a 
well-conducted, grey-haired woman cannot walk 
quietly through a town street without being 
exposed to insult, is to admit the country where 
it occurs, is uncivilised.' 

6 Well, I have lived now some years amongst 
Spaniards, have received much kindness from 
them, am married to a Spanish lady, and I do 
not like to hear them abused.' 

6 You are married ! ' for he looked a mere 
boy. 

4 Yes, here is the portrait of my wife.' He 
took from his pocket-book a photograph of 



GKANADA. 



317 



a fine-looking, dark-eyed donna of the true 
Spanish type. Of course I admired her. 6 1 am 
married, and my wife is faithful and affectionate, 
which is not always the case with Spanish 
donnas, and I do not like to hear Spaniards ill- 
spoken of.' 

4 Then they should not deserve it. I shall 
say in my book only what is true.' 

We had some further conversation, and 
ended by becoming very good friends. He 
gave me the addresses of the best inns in 
case I went to Seville and Malaga, at which 
last place he lived, and invited me, if I went 
there, to call at *his house. I meant to go to 
both places, but the hooting I met with every 
time I showed my face in Granada deterred me. 

I went the following morning to visit the 
Generalife. It is built on a high hill opposite 
the Alhambra, from which it is separated by a 
rocky ravine overhung by trees and wild vines 
and other creepers. The greatest part of the 
mountain on which it stands belongs to the 
Marquis de Campotejar, who, as my guide told 
me, lives in Genoa, and has never once seen 
this property ; 4 so that,' added he, 4 the gardener 
is the real owner.' 



318 OVEE THE PYEENEES INTO SPAIN. 



'I should like well enough to be the gar- 
dener,' said I ; 'that is, if Granada were a place 
where one could walk about in peace. Nothing 
can be more beautiful than the views from this 
hill.' 

' Ah ! but it is frightfully cold in winter, and 
then the people are snowed up.' 

This talk had brought us through a carriage 
road with a shrubbery on either side, half 
shrubs, half flowers, a thorough English drive, 
up to the gates of the Generalife. The porter 
came, opened the door, and we entered. We 
passed up a garden court, where the trees were 
cut and clipped into arches, and gay flower-beds 
were formally laid out beside a large square 
tank, and along small canals that filled it. 'This 
is the Darro,' said my guide ; ' this water belongs 
to the Marquis.' The front of the Generalife is 
an open colonnade ; parts of the walls and roof 
are fretted and carved after the manner of the 
Alhambra, but not nearly so beautiful. In the 
first room we entered were portraits of Spanish 
kings and queens, among them Ferdinand and 
Isabella. A curious genealogical tree of the 
Marquis de Campotejar's family, the Grimaldi 
Gen tili, was in the second, and my guide bade 



GRANADA. 



319 



me observe a portrait of Sidi Aya, the founder 
of the family, a Moor, who received baptism 
and the title of Don Pedro from Ferdinand. 
4 He is always called Don Pedro primo, because 
he was the first Don of his race,' added he. 
6 He was a renegade, then,' said 1 , 4 to crouch to 
the conqueror ; a disgrace to his Moorish blood.' 
4 Well, Ferdinand gave him this property ; later 
it passed to a female descendant ; that is her 
portrait; she married the Marquis of Campotejar, 
and thus it became the property of a Genoese 
family.' We went through several rooms, but 
there is not much to see in the Generalife, after 
having seen the Alhambra. Its chief charm is 
the beauty of its site, the delicious purity of the 
air, and the gardens. They, however, though 
well worth keeping up in their present style as 
a sample of what Moorish gardens were, are 
nothing to a well-laid out English garden. They 
consist of small courts, the walls of which are 
hid by creepers, terrace-like, one above the 
other. In one are some very old cypress-trees, 
and here the guide pointed out the tree where 
romance says the Sultana met the Abencerrage, 
and was discovered ; which meeting led to the 
destruction of the whole tribe. From hence we 



3:70 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

ascended a flight of stone steps with a stone 
wall on either side them, along the top of which 
in Moorish days, cool water ran in a long nar- 
row stone spouting. From the higher garden 
we went to see a small Moorish mosque stand- 
ing in a little garden, in which the Moorish 
kings once worshipped, but it is scarcely worth 
visiting ; from a chamber over it, however, 
there is a most magnificent view. 

We passed out through a postern door be- 
hind the mosque, on to the range of hills on 
which the Generalife stands, and walked about 
half a mile to see the full beauty of the vega or 
plain of Granada, and the Sierra Nevada. 
Every traveller who visits Granada should do 
the like. Oh ! how I wished I were a man, that 
I might ricle on mules without being tortured 
by ill-tempered and cruel muleteers, along 
that glorious range, and explore its botanical 
treasures at my leisure. I found one treasure 
on the hill myself, well worthy of being trans- 
planted to English gardens. 

Imagine a very slender-stemmed young furze- 
bush, about two or three feet high, with very 
slender spikes, stuck over with mignonette 
flowers, and having exactly the scent of migno- 



GRANADA. 



321 



nette. This is the best description I can give 
of it, and yet it is not an exact one, for its 
flower, though of the same greenish hue, 
wants the small sac which distinguishes the 
garden plant, and the stamens are pale greenish 
yellow, instead of the bright orange red of the 
garden plant, but still there is a great general 
resemblance. I gathered several sprays, and 
had them in water the rest of my stay in 
Granada, and they never lost their scent as 
mignonette does when in a nosegay. They 
are very small, and my sight is very bad, and 
I had no magnifying- glass with me ; I cannot 
therefore class the plant. 

I went to see the churches, as in duty bound. 
Outside they looked handsome, for most of them 
were built in' a semi-Moresco style, with large 
cupolas and minarets ; inside I saw no beauty. 
Of the environs of Granada I cannot speak ; all 
that I saw of them being from the diligence 
windows, and distant views from the hills of 
the Alhambra and Generalife. They must be 
charming if one could visit them. But, alas ! I 
am forced to say of Granada what Mr. Ford 
said of Andorre, that ' it is a paradise inhabited 
by devils ! ' 

T 



322 



OVER THE PYEEXEES INTO SPAIN, 



CHAPTEE XIV. 

GRANADA TO ALICANTE. 

I went one morning to the general post-office to 
inquire for letters, which obliged me to pass by 
the market-place. I lost my way, and asked it 
of a handsomely-dressed Spanish donna, and 
she very politely said she would show it me. 
We had not gone far before the usual hooting 
the unfortunate stranger commenced, and a 
rabble began to follow us, whom from time to 
time she waved back in a dignified way with 
her hand, once or twice rebuking them. 6 They 
are always so in Granada,' said she apologeti- 
cally to me ; 6 it is very bad, very wrong ; I am 
so sorry.' 

When we reached the market-place, the 
screaming, the shouts of derision from every 



GKANADA TO ALICANTE. 



323 



stall were dreadful, while another set of men. 
women, and boys pressed round us with rude 
comments. The Spanish lady stopped and drew 
herself proudly up to her full height, looked at 
them indignantly, and waving them off with her 
left hand, gracefully tendered me the right, and 
taking my hand, led me through the market- 
place, while the crowd slunk back ashamed. 
There was true nobility, true heroism in this 
act. That woman must have had a noble soul. 
I have known men — aye, English men — who 
were cowardly and weak enough to shrink from 
speaking to or acknowledging a shabbily-dressed 
woman in Eegent Street, though she was their 
own mother or their sister! Young England 
will be glad to bow to a lady who is elegantly 
dressed, or whom he sees driving about London 
with rich friends in a handsome carriage, and 
cut her rudely the next clay, if it happen to be 
a pouring rain, and she being obliged to go out, 
has put on an old gown and a water-proof cloak. 
In all this there is an utter want of true dignity 
and manliness. It shows that Young England 
is a vulgar snob ; a parvenu, who, not feeling 
sure of his own stand-point in society, is afraid 



324 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

he will be judged by the people he is seen to 
speak to. 

At the street leading towards the post, my 
kind Spanish donna left me, but not before I had 
thanked her very warmly. In returning, I was 
exposed, of course, to the same insolence, and I 
went back to the inn, determined to leave Gra- 
nada that night. There was but one place va- 
cant in the coupe, which cost double a seat in any 
other part of the diligence, but I took it, and 
shaking the dust from off my feet at the inhos- 
pitable city, thankfully left it that very evening. 
My two travelling companions were, to my deep 
regret, both young men. The farther one would 
have been tolerably well-behaved if left to him- 
self ; the other was a brute. He was a man of 
Herculean mould and immense height, with a 
bull-neck, a huge head covered with thick, crisp, 
negro-like hair, and coarse, negro -like, bloated, 
sensual features ; I hardly ever saw any man 
whose aspect was so loathsome and revolting. I 
instinctively shrank from him. The Spanish 
coupe has two partitions, projecting from the 
upper part of the back and stuffed, which are 
meant both to mark out each person's seat and 
for the head to rest against in sleep, as the 



GRANADA TO ALICANTE. 



325 



diligences generally travel all night. This man 
would not keep within his own partition, but 
insolently leant his head on my side, and then 
pretending sleep, let it drop heavily on my 
shoulder. I shook it off indignantly, and told 
him to keep to his own place, I think at least 
three times, if not four. He then addressed me 
in very coarse and insulting language — the other 
man rather joined in — and my heart sank at the 
idea that I must travel alone with these two 
men the live-long night. I was glad I had a 
huge clasp-knife in my pocket, and Keeper by 
my side, for I felt frightened. I answered as if 
I had not understood — briefly, and in a tone 
which, while it betrayed none of the fear I felt, 
showed I did not wish to talk — and after awhile 
both men fell fast asleep, for which I was thank- 
ful. By-and-by, however, the huge man's head 
again leant outside the compartment, and then 
fell heavily on my shoulder. I pushed him off, 
and said indignantly, ' Keep your own place, 
Senor ; I can't bear your head on my shoulder.' 
The push woke him ; he glared savagely at me, 
and struck me twice violently on the arm. I 
do not mean to say he injured my arm, or 
struck with force, for such a powerful man 



326 OYER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

could have broken it in a moment, but he 
struck me, a stranger and a woman, in passion ; 
and I felt the pain of the blows for nearly an 
hour afterwards. Again, I say, no woman 
ought to travel alone in so uncivilised a country 
as Spain without the protection of a father or a 
husband. And had I known Spain was so far 
behind all other European nations in civilisation ; 
no hope of pleasure, or improvement, or fame, or 
profit ; no mountains, no flowers, and no Alham- 
bra, should have tempted me to go there ; but I 
had frequently travelled alone both in France 
and Germany and met no annoyance, even when 
quite young, and I never dreamed of the insults 
that awaited me in so semi-barbarous a land. 

Happily, the savage was too sullen to tease 
me much more ; he slept most of the way till we 
reached Venta di Cardenas. There we had a 
long weary wait for several hours at the miser- 
able venta, before the railway train started for 
Alicante. I asked for a glass of lemonade ; the 
landlord sent his boy for a man who sold 
lemonade in the road at two sous a glass. I had 
bought several glasses of this not very delightful 
compound, which it needed a strong imagina- 
tion to fancy lemonade, at other way-side Veritas, 



GRANADA TO ALICANTE. 



327 



on my road from Madrid to Granada ; there is 
always a lemonade seller at each. I saw it 
poured out in the inn kitchen from the long 
pitcher in which it is carried, slung round the 
neck ; and for this glass, whose price was two 
sous, the landlord of the venta charged me two 
reals (eight pence). I told him it was an over- 
charge, for it was not what I had asked for — 
lemon juice and water — but the stuff sold at a 
penny a glass in the streets, and that money 
wrongly gained did no one any good. He flung 
it in my face, and it fell through the window, 
where, of course, I left it. Not liking to stay in 
the venta, I went to the railway station, and 
stayed there till it was time to take the tickets. 
' How much to Alicante ? ' I asked. The sum 
was named. I paid it, received the ticket and 
change, and went to the baggage-office to get the 
tickets for my bag and Keeper. Before I reached 
it a beggarly-looking lad with naked feet and 
espardines, whose bare shoulder showed through 
his waistcoat, 4 a very vulgar boy,' came after 
me, saying, 4 El Jefe, ' the chief, wanted me. I 
returned to the ticket-office, and 4 El Jefe ' said 
4 he had made a mistake ; the ticket to Alicante 
cost twice as much as I had paid.' I did not 



328 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



think this possible, as he was issuing tickets to 
Alicante every day, and I had asked for a second- 
class ticket ; but I had no resource but to pay. 
I saw, however, that he was trying to confuse 
me, for he gave me some silver back for my 
second twenty-five franc piece, then asked for 
it back, then gave me some again, three times. 
Again I went to the baggage-office to take my 
tickets ; my luggage was weighed, and I put 
down the sum required on the book-keeper's 
book. I had scarcely done so when the naked- 
shouldered boy seized hold of three francs, or 
rather pesette, jabbering something about 4 Kefe.' 
I thought he had been sent from the venta, and 
said angrily I had had no ' cafe ; ' but at last the 
book-keeper made him put down the money 
and sent him about his business. Heartily tired 
of Yenta di Cardenas ; as soon as I had put 
Keeper in his cage, I asked a railway official if 
I might not take my seat, and on his answering 
affirmatively, did so. I had not sat quiet many 
minutes before a gendarme came to the window, 
accompanied by the ragged youth, and both 
began talking about 4 Kefe.' 'Is there no one 
here who speaks French?' said I, in utter despair. 
A Spaniard, who was near, kindly came forward 



GRANADA TO ALICANTE. 



329 



and interpreted. The ragged boy, it seemed, 
claimed three francs, which he said the 4 Jefe ' 
had given him as his change, when he took a 
ticket, and which I had stolen. He had not 
even stood near me when I took my ticket ; and 
I took no money but what the 4 Jefe ' gave me 
into my own hand the second time, and he 
claimed no three francs until I returned from 
the ticket-office the second time. I suppose the 
4 chief's ' imposition suggested his ; and the chief 
durst do no other than support his allegations, 
lest he should betray him. It was well for me 
he claimed no more, for I had to pay it to avoid 
trouble. 'It is a shame,' said I to the inter- 
preter, who had so kindly helped me. 4 It is a 
theft, no doubt,' answered he, but the gendarme 
was obliged to force you to pay, as the lad swore 
you had taken his money ; and it was better to 
do so than to have a delay ; he saw you were a 
respectable person, and was as civil as he could 
be' — as indeed he was. 4 Yes,' said I, indignantly, 
4 but how travellers are cheated in Spain ! The 
44 Jefe " never gave me three francs at all ; he gave 
me six or seven into my hand ; I had no time 
to count them, and that lad was sent to call me 
back to pay a second time for my ticket, after I 



330 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

had already paid for it. Even the landlord of 
the venta charged me two reals for a glass of 
street lemonade, sold in the street at a penny a 
glass, and which I saw him get from the man 
who sells it. There is nothing but cheating in 
Spain.' My interpreter was too prudent to in- 
culpate the 6 JefeV 'No doubt he had made a 
mistake. I was near when the " Jefe " told you 
what the fare to Alicante was, and thought it 
was wonderfully cheap. The boy no doubt was 
a thief ; there are gamins in every country ; but 
you were wrong in finding fault with the lemon- 
ade, for the price of it is two reals in every 
venta. 1 ' Yes,' said I, e if it had been lemonade ; 
but, as I said, I saw the landlord buy it of the 
man who sells it for a penny a glass.' 6 No 
matter,' said he, ' you bought it of the landlord 
of a venta ; you were wrong there, but you 
have been ill-used now, and I am sorry.' He 
bowed courteously, and withdrew. ' Yes,' 
said I to myself, as my travelling acquaintance 
said he hoped I should do in my forthcoming 
book, 6 1 own there are some gentlemen in 
Spain.' But my troubles were not over. I was 
to learn that if there were some gentlemen yet 
left in Spain, they were in the proportion of one 



GRANADA TO ALICANTE. 



331 



to twelve. I heard a loud noise of voices and 
laughter, and a party of a dozen men, headed 
by the bull-necked, bloated-faced, negro-like 
giant who had struck me in the coupe of the 
diligence, came up to the train. He had told 
me he was going to Madrid ; surely he was not 
to be my travelling companion to Alicante! 
My heart sank at the thought. One of the party 
opened the door and looked in, and seeing only 
me, as quickly closed it, not however without 
giving my gown a violent pull first, in a very 
insolent manner, of which I did not choose to 
be conscious. They went to the far end of the 
carriage (a Spanish second-class railway car- 
riage is divided into many compartments, so as 
to hold forty or fifty persons), and- opening the 
door, entered, and seated themselves at the 
farther end, but did not long remain there ; 
for after addressing me several times very in- 
solently, clearly at the instigation of their leader, 
the half-negro-like man, several of them vaulted 
over the divisions, and entered the compartment 
where I was seated, one throwing himself his 
full length on the bench on which I was seated, 
and kicking my dress rudely ; and, in short, his 
conduct and that of his companions was so offeii* 



332 OYER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

sive, that I felt in my pocket for the long clasp- 
knife I carried, and transferred it stealthily to the 
pocket of my jacket, fearing I might have to use 
it. I would have jumped out, but dared not, as 
the train was beginning to move. So with a beat- 
ing heart I sat still, anxiously awaiting till the 
conductor came round to look at the tickets, and 
the moment he did, I exclaimed, ' Put me into 
another carriage ; I am the only woman here, 
and I will not travel alone with twelve men, who 
have already grossly insulted me.' He complied 
instantly, in the civilest manner, and put me into 
the next carriage, which happened to be a third- 
class one, where the people, who had probably 
heard somewhat of the language used by the 
men I had left, instantly made room for me, 
calling me ' la povera Seiiora,' and pitying me. 
I thanked them all. £ But,' said I to the con- 
ductor, 6 having paid for a second-class carriage, 
I have a right to a seat in one, and it is a long 
night journey, and there the seats are stuffed, 
while here they are not ' (for in fact in Ger- 
many, France, and Spain, the second-class car- 
riages are as comfortable as our first-class ones); 
'but if there does not happen to be a seat 
vacant in a carriage where there are other 



GRANADA TO ALICANTE. 



333 



women, I will remain here with these kind 
people. He looked, and found there was a 
seat vacant, and again thanking those who had 
been so courteous to me, I followed him to 
it. It is the peasants that are the gentlemen 
and gentlewomen in Spain, while the bour- 
geoisie, or middle-class, seem to me to be the 
incarnation of false pride, vice, and insolence ; 
and Mr. Ford, who lived long in Spain, every- 
where lauds the superior courtesy and chival- 
rous demeanour of the peasant above that of 
the townsmen, also. 

There were many female travellers in the 
carriage to which I was transferred, and no one 
was rude to me. When I expressed a wish to 
lie down as one of my fellow female travellers 
was doing, saying I was very tired, as I had 
travelled all the previous day and night by dili- 
gence, a man courteously got up and yielded 
me his seat, beside his wife ; and we each lay 
wrapped in shawls on the long bench, and slept 
all night. As I composed myself to rest, and 
wrapped my huge shawl, blanket fashion, over 
me, I wondered at his extreme courtesy — I had 
not met with the like before in Spain ; but 
when daylight came, I saw by his espardines 



334 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

he was one of the working-class, and, as Mr. 
Ford says, c all the peasants are gentlemen.' 

We stopped at a station, whose name I 
forget, where we changed trains for Alicante, 
and breakfasted. And now the country began 
to improve ; blue hills rose in the distance, and 
as we approached them, I found they were 
grand and lofty mountains, with lovely valleys 
opening between them, and picturesque-looking 
towns and villages, and vineyards and orchards ; 
and gardens, among whose greenery rose here 
and there singular oriental-looking trees, whose 
name I did not know, and could not learn, 
stretching along their sides ; or into the flat plain 
at their base. How different reality always is 
from imagination ! I wonder whether any per- 
son or place ever realised the idea formed in 
the mind ? My childhood had been familiar 
with Don Quixote and Le Sage ; Madrid, and 
Lerida, and Saragozza, and Cardenas, and 
numberless other places, were all familiar to 
me ; and I imagined the Spaniard a stern, grave, 
courteous, stately, chivalrous gentleman ; some- 
what too proud, and prone to dress ; too jealous 
as a lover, or a husband, and too fond of gal- 
lantry to married women, while single and dis- 



GRANADA TO ALICANTE. 



335 



engaged ; but a thorough gentleman for all 
that : instead, the Spaniards I travelled with, or 
met, were mostly what one would term merry, 
rollicking fellows, always seeking occasion for 
banter, and prone to laugh like children at the 
veriest trifle. 

At one of the stations a Don got into the 
carriage, who was grave, silent, and dign 
enough, even for my ideas. Don Pomposo, I 
shall call him, for he seemed, without being a 
man of real fashion, or elegant in manners, on 
exceedingly good terms with himself, and rather 
inclined to be haughty to others. He was ac- 
companied by a young, rather pretty, wife ; 
both were very well dressed. He wore two 
splendid brilliants on his finger, and a very ex- 
pensive watch — it was not worn in sight, but I 
saw him take it out to look at the time ; and she 
had a beautiful emerald ring (Spanish ladies 
rarely wear gloves), very handsome brooch and 
earrings, and a beautiful watch and chain ; she 
also was elegantly dressed. They had not long 
been seated, when a shabby genteel, very vulgar, 
and very dirty-looking man entered the car- 
riage, and placed himself opposite them. So dis- 
agreeable-looking, dirty, and vulgar was he, that 



336 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



I really felt thankful the Don and his wife were 
by my side, so that I could not have him as my 
neighbour. He also had handsome enamel shirt 
buttons on a very dirty shirt, and an expensive 
gold watch and guard; for the Spaniards are 
fond of jewelry, and even the peasant- women 
wear handsome and often valuable trinkets. 
There was clearly no previous acquaintance 
between the husband and wife, and himself, for 
he did not speak to them when he entered. 
What was my surprise then, when shortly 
afterwards he said, putting his hand on his 
knees, to Don Pomposo, who sat with his mouth 
screwed up, and his nose in the ah*, in dignified 
silence, as if he had disdained us all : 6 How 
solemn you look, and how silent you are ! Why, 
you look as if you despised us all ! Just look 
what a face you make ! ' Here he imitated the 
Don's solemn air. ' It really does not look 
well. Come, unbend a little and make yourself 
agreeable.' At this adjuration the Don looked 
blacker and grimmer than ever ; he reminded 
one of Scott's ballad — 

She cross'd him once, she cross'd him twice, 

That ladie was so brave ; 
The darker grew his goblin hue, 

The darker grew the cave. 



GEANADA TO ALICANTE. 



337 



He seemed, I thought, to turn blue with hor- 
ror at the dirty man's audacious familiarity — 
but the other was as brave as the lady in the 
ballad ; he crossed him thrice, and the charm 
was broken. ' Come/ said he, first removing his 
hands from the other's knees to his shoulders, 
looking into his face, and making a feint of 
embracing him, then slapping his cheek, and 
finally pulling his moustache 6 don't look so 
dreadfully grave ; look about you like other 
people, and make yourself agreeable.' An 
Englishman would have knocked the fellow 
down, the Don sat quiet, and did not resent 
the impertinence. Nay, more, he slowly began 
to unbend and to talk to him, in which con- 
versation his young wife joined. By-and-by 
the dirty man said, that four years before he 
had had a violent attack of cholera, since which 
he never travelled without a brandy flask, and 
suiting action to words, he put it to his Hps 
and drank, after which he offered it to the 
Don, who, to my surprise, drank after him. 

Nor was this all ; the couple soon after changed 
seats in order to travel with their backs to the 
engine, placing themselves opposite me, so that 
Don Pomposo sat next to the dirty man, in- 

z 



33S OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

stead of facing him, and the three talked away- 
together for some time, till the Don grew drowsy 
with the intense heat of the day, and fell asleep. 
What was my amaze to see his pretty little 
wife stretch out her arms behind her husband, 
and tap the dirty fellow on the head with her 
fan ! He understood the hint, and the wink 
that accompanied it ; and pulling the unfortu- 
nate Don's whiskers, and slapping his cheek in 
turns, effectually prevented him from enjoying 

Kind Nature's blest restorer — balmy sleep ! 

by teasing him incessantly till the train arrived 
at the next station, where he and his wife left 
the carriage. 

I wish I could describe the beauty of almost 
all the scenery of this line of railway, so as to 
set it before my readers, and show them the 
reaches of fertile valleys, the blue mountains 
on either side, and the picturesque and pecu- 
liarly built towns, with their spires, and citadels, 
and castellated walls that rose on their rocky 
sides. One of the most beautiful and striking, 
was the town and Castello de Sax ; a very strong 
fortress built on the extreme point of a lofty pin- 
nacle of rock that seems to have been rent from 



GRANADA TO ALICANTE. 



339 



the mountain side in some great convulsion of 
nature, seons of years ago, and overhanging 
the brown, quaint-looking fortified town below 
it. This fortress is very strong, and I should 
think must be impregnable if its one entrance 
were well guarded, for I don't see how any 
soldiers could scale the sides of that bare es- 
carped rock ; and it has been recently repaired 
or rebuilt, so that it looks quite new. Both 
this Castello de Sax, and the Chateau de Foix 
are far grander and more majestic-looking ; 
more fortress-like, than the far famed Ehren- 
breitstein. 

After Sax, the mountains became gradually 
lower, the plains more flat and sandy. A few 
cocoa-nuts, and bamboos, and prickly pears 
gleamed strange, oriental, and peculiar among 
the familiar trees ; and the mountains dwindled, 
and dwindled, till we reached the low range 
beneath which lies Alicante. 

What a railway station ! After travelling two 
nights and one day, there was no room where 
a woman could wash her hands or smooth her 
hair, or make herself comfortable. They showed 
me, as at Venta de Cardenas, into a room where 
a number of men were washing their faces 

z 2 



340 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



and combing their hair. I rushed out. 'Let 
me get out of Spain !' cried I. 4 Where is the 
omnibus that takes people to the steamer for 
Alicante ? ' ' There is no steamer for Alicante 
to-day, signora.' ' But there is — I was told so 
by my fellow-travellers this morning.' At last 
I found the omnibus — at last Keeper and I got 
in — at last we arrived at a packet office. 
There was no packet sailing to Alicante that 
day ! c I told the signora so,' observed the 
conductor, who spoke French, triumphantly ; 
'Madame had better let me drive her to a 
good hotel/ ' But, is this the only office for 
steamers to Barcelona ? I was told this morning, 
by people who live in Alicante, that a vessel 
sailed for Barcelona to-day ; but, that if I did 
not go by her I should have to stay here four 
days before another left. It's no use your 
taking me to an hotel. It would not be- 
nefit the hotel people, for I wont eat any- 
thing there. I want to get away from Spain, 
and you must take me to the other packet 
office.' Luckily a gentleman came by, and asked 
what the discussion was ; could he assist me in 
any way ? You know, dear reader, I said there 
were a few courteous gentlemen in Spain. I 



GKANADA TO ALICANTE. 



341 



told him. 4 Certainly,' said he, 4 there is another 
office, and a steamer sails to-day at four o'clock 
for Barcelona. Take madame there.' 4 Madame 
had better drive first to a hotel,' said the con- 
ductor, insinuatingly. 4 Madame can then refresh 
herself, and she will afterwards be in time for 
the steamer.' 4 Madame will do no such thing,' 
said I. 4 Madame will go on board at once. Be 
kind enough, sir, to tell the conductor the 
street where the office is, that he may drive 
me there.' 4 Oh ! he knows,' said the Spanish 

gentleman ; 4 it is the Calle ,' I forget 

its name. 4 Take the lady there.' He raised 
his hat, and bowed ; and the abashed conductor, 
without further remonstrance, drove me to the 
packet office. 

4 What is the fare to Barcelona ?' 4 Ten Na- 
poleons.' 4 Ten Napoleons ! It can't be. I was 
told it was cheap.' 4 Well, I may be wrong ; I 
don't understand French money ; sit down and 
I will see.' It proved to be two guineas. I 
paid them joyfully ; jumped once more into the 
omnibus, was driven to the quay, the conduc- 
tor hailed a boat, I and my dog got into it. 
Huzza ! Thank God I'm leaving Spain ! ' 

I reached the steamer. Oh, joy ! a pretty, 



342 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

graceful young woman leant over the sides of 
the vessel. She was the captain's wife ; and I 
should not, as I feared I should, be the only 
female on board. She knew a little English, as 
did the captain, for both had spent five months 
in Glasgow while this vessel was building. I 
read • Glasgow ' on all her machinery. The 
Spaniards owe everything to England and hate 
her for her superiority. English blood, English 
energy and talent, and English treasure, preserved 
their nationality to them when Spain would 
otherwise have become a province of France, 
under the iron grasp of the first Napoleon. 
English capital and English labour and skill are 
gradually — for no English energy can make 
Spanish sloth and Spanish indolence creep 
faster than at a snail's pace — covering the 
country with a network of railways. Liverpool 
and Manchester supply her with steam-engines, 
and probably all her best steamers are like the 
Bayo — English or Glasgow built. Too idle and 
too dull to make these things for himself, the 
Spaniard resembles the idle, dissolute vaga- 
bond workman, who envies and decries the 
capitalist, who has grown rich by honest in- 



GRANADA TO ALICANTE. 



843 



dustry, as 4 a bloated aristocrat feeding on the 
sweat of the people/ and whose dearest wish is 
to see others brought down to his own level, 
not to raise himself to theirs. 



344 



OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



CHAPTEE XV. 

ALICANTE TO BARCELONA. 

I was four days and four nights on board the 
Bayo. Those nights, and one at the small venta 
where I slept the night I left TJrgel, were 
the only ones in which I enjoyed a sound rest, 
unbroken by noxious insects, while I was in 
Spain. The ladies' cabin, which I had all to 
myself, for there were no other lady passengers, 
was perfectly clean, and the steward very civil 
and attentive ; the living at the captain's table 
was also the best fare I had while in the 
country, and the captain and his pretty young 
wife were very courteous to me. She was very 
pretty to look at — that Pepita — and very grace- 
ful in all her movements, and she did not 
disfigure her pretty-shaped head by enormous 
bunches of horse-hair, though she did wear very 



• 



ALICANTE TO BARCELONA. 



345 



small crinoline puffs on each temple, over which 
her silken black hair was turned back in waves ; 
but she did not wear the frightful chignon, now 
so fashionable, but twisted her hair round the 
back of her head in the graceful mode of an 
antique Greek statue. Very pretty and very 
graceful did she look in her long flowing black 
dress — she always wore black — -her neat white 
sleeves, and collar fastened by a handsome 
brooch ; when, fan in hand, with a large square 
black veil over her head, she descended the 
ship's side into the boat, to be rowed with her 
husband to the different towns at which we 
stayed to disembark a lading of iron bars, flour, 
fruit, and similar heterogeneous articles. Very 
proud and very fond of her he evidently was. 
I surprised them one night on deck — he sitting 
with his arm round her waist — looking at the 
moonbeams on the water, and making love to 
each other in the most lover-like fashion. That 
was the first night I was on board, and I thought 
they were a new-married couple, but they had 
been married five years. 

She never seemed to do anything, except 
brush the train of her gown the morning after 
she had been on shore, and look pretty and 



346 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

make love to K-hulian (Julian, her husband's 
Christian name). It is the fashion in Spain to 
call people by their Christian rather than their 
surnames, and even his men never called him 
anything but 6 El Capitan' or Julian. And here, 
although I know all my men critics will fall 
foul of me for so doing, I must record my in- 
most conviction that men are not at all grateful 
for an industrious, hard-working, active, mana- 
ging wife. They rather prefer a doll, whose 
sole vocation it is to smile and look pretty, and 
whom they can pet and protect, and dress out, 
and check like a child, and who never takes the 
liberty of thinking for herself. 

Alicante looked very pretty from the sea — 
a white, glittering city, backed by verdure and 
girdled in by mountains. Indeed, the whole 
coast of Spain that we sailed past was beautiful, 
with its long wall-like range of mountains, 
whose bases sweep down nearly to the shore. 
Spain is, in fact, one of the loveliest countries on 
the globe. Richly has Almighty God endowed 
the land with vegetable and mineral productions ; 
but, as in Italy, the wastefulness of man, which 
has destroyed her original forests and planted 
no trees in their place — so that the land, and the 



ALICANTE TO BARCELONA. 347 

rivers, and water springs have alike become dry 
and barren — has made a great part of it a dreary 
wilderness. In the hands of Frenchmen or 
English it would be what God meant it to be- 
an earthly Paradise. 

The vessel lay at anchor for a whole day, 
unlading in front of a small town, whose name 
I forget ; and at Valencia and Tarragona, the 
captain and his wife went every day ashore in 
his boat, but they did not offer me a seat in 
it, and I did not care to go ashore, but con- 
tented myself with sitting on deck and admiring 
the beautiful scene — mountains, verdure, city 
and spire, and tower, and blue sea flecked with 
white foam, as if emulating the blue sky and 
white fleecy clouds overhead, the vessels that 
studded each bay, and the smaller craft that 
flitted past them. If anyone blame me for a 
want of curiosity, let them remember that I am 
only a woman, and that the yells and hootings, 
and even peltings, I had met with in Spanish 
cities, had rendered me afraid to walk about 
among so savage and uncivilised a people. 

At last we reached Barcelona. I had learnt 
a train started at one o'clock for Perpignan the 
night before, so I was up by four to pack my 



348 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 

bag and get all in readiness. I left the Bayo 
at eight o'clock. I had to get rny luggage 
carried to an inn, to obtain breakfast, to go to 
a banker's to change a circular note, and to get 
tickets for the railway ; and I wanted to go to 
the English consul's office to thank him for the 
trouble he had taken in writing to the Barce- 
lona railway company for my lost parcel of 
books and MS. Thanks to Spanish ' Ora, ora,' 
(presently — by-and-by) it was half-past twelve 
before all this could be accomplished. At the 
Hotel des Quatros JSFaciones, where I went, it 
took an hour to procure a little water to wash 
my hands, a little cold meat for my dog, and a 
little bread, fruit, and wine for myself. I re- 
monstrated with the waiters, and told them 
I could have got all this in ten minutes in 
England, and that I should not hurry them if I 
had not to start by the one o'clock train. They 
replied they were not machines, like the English. 
So it is in Spain. They absolutely take a pride 
in their procrastination, their snail-like dawdling, 
and roundabout way of doing everything. It 
was the same at the omnibus and railway offices. 
In France and England, getting one's ticket is 
the affair of at most a quarter of an hour ; here 



ALICANTE TO BARCELONA. 



349 



it took above an hour. I asked in various 
likely places, as money changers', for the banker, 
whose address was not given on the lettre 
(Vindication I carried. No one knew him, and 
I was directed to a Senor Serras, a merchant, 
who, however, gave me the information I 
wanted, so that I found the right M. Serras at 
last. There also I had long to wait. How 
does Spanish business ever get done ? By the 
way, I would suggest to all bankers who issue 
circular notes, the expediency of putting the full 
address of their correspondents in each place. 
The printing of the letter of indication would 
not cost much more, and it would save much 
toil and trouble and valuable time to the bearer. 
In England a great banking firm is known by 
name to everyone. You may ask a hundred 
people before you learn its whereabouts in Spain. 
However, at last I concluded all my business, 
rushed to the consul, thanked him, and took my 
seat in the omnibus, to the railway that was to 
bear me from Spain with a glad heart. 



350 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



CHAPTEE XVI. 

BARCELONA TO PERPIGNAN AND PARIS. 

The whole journey from Barcelona to Perpignan 
is interesting, and I enjoyed it the more because 
my fearful task was over, and I was leaving 
Spain. At every mile my spirits rose. We 
passed Barcelonetta and Cardela, pretty little 
suburban villages and watering places, where 
one would have liked to spend a few weeks in 
rambling about the rocks botanising, and stroll- 
ing on the level sands of the beach. Strange 
tropical-looking plants grew in the little gardens 
and in the fissures of the rocks, and I noticed 
in many places a lovely plant which in one 
place so covered a whole bank, as to form a 
good-sized hedge ; with leaves like a tree-lupin, 
and apparently a somewhat similar, lilac-blue 
flower ; but it is not easy to botanise from 



BARCELONA TO PERPIGNAN AND PARIS. 351 



the window of a swift whirling railway carriage. 
Calella was chiefly remarkable for the sun-dials 
painted on the front of many of its houses; in 
other respects, it resembled the village first- 
named. Empalme was greener and more shaded 
by trees than most parts of Spain, and the little 
copses through which tiny streamlets murmured, 
and the green fields of grass fenced in by hedges, 
made me almost fancy I was in England. As 
we approached Gerona, the country grew flatter. 
The railroad goes no farther than that town, 
where we arrived about six o'clock. To my 
dismay I had found no place vacant, when I 
entered the omnibus office to obtain tickets for 
the railroad and diligence, except a seat on the 
high banquette ; but I would have sat on the 
roof had it been necessary, to escape a day 
sooner from uncivilised Spain. I clambered 
joyfully up to my high perch, and Keeper, as 
usual, astounded everybody by the alacrity and 
cat-like agility, with which he climbed up the 
ladder to the top of the diligence. Like his 
mistress, I think he was glad to quit Spain. 
Once up on the banquette, I found it a very 
pleasant seat, for from it I had a capital view of 
the country we traversed. In leaving Gerona we 



352 



OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



crossed a very narrow bridge, there was scarcely 
sufficient room for two carts to pass abreast ; 
a team of oxen was in front of us, and their 
driver vainly endeavoured to drag the animals 
into one of the angles of the bridge — there were 
two or three on each side — into which carts or 
carriages might retreat so as to escape collision 
with others, if they could get in ! The oxen 
would not go in, and our wheels grazed those of 
the cart they were drawing. I thought we 
should have gone over the low broken parapet 
wall of the ruinous crazy old bridge ; but, thank 
God ! we had a good driver and got safely over 
it. Soon the country grew wilder and wilder, 
it was nothing on either side but steep, barren, 
precipitous rocks, with black ravines, yawning 
fearfully between them, and studded here and 
there with stunted oak, sapins, and box-trees. 
Here and there under the rocks was a sloping 
tract of level land, and this was planted with 
vines and dusty olive-trees. We passed several 
dirty-looking straggling towns and villages — 
everything betokened we were yet in Spain. 
As we approached the bank of a tolerably 
wide river, a Frenchmen on my right hand 
said, 6 If that river was in France there would 



BARCELONA TO PERPIGXAN AND PARIS. 353 



have been a bridge over it long ago ; the 
Spaniards never do anything they can avoid 
doing. I travel this road many times a year to 
buy oil. Once, the diligence had to stay here 
two days and nights — and you see there is 
no inn — because the river was impassable.' 
6 Cosa cVEspagna, as Mr. Ford says, thought I 
to myself. 

It was dark when we stopped to sup at the 
last town in Spain — Figueras, I think, it was 
called. We had an excellent supper — soup, 
bouilli, roast meat, soles, fowl, the large craw- 
fish-like lobster, partridges, murdered by being 
dressed with tomatoes, vegetables, apples, pears, 
greengages, peaches, melon, and grapes ; it was 
the last meal, and the best meal, I tasted in 
Spain. The hostess stood by and carved, and 
pressed us all to eat, and Ave required no press- 
ing, for the fare was good and we were ravenous ; 
probably, like myself, all had had nothing 
since morning. The charge was the very mode- 
rate sum of three francs. Again we started ; 
by-and-by we reached Perthus. ' We are in 
France,' said the Frenchman, by my side. 'Thank 
God I am in France once more ! ' responded I 
heartily. The douanier standing by with his 

A A 



854 OVER THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



lantern, laughed. You may be sure my luggage 
was not visited with too minute a scrutiny. 
However, I had but one small travelling bag, a 
hat-box and a leathern reticule I carried in my 
hand ; there was small chance of my being a 
smuggler, and in fact I never smuggle. Lejeu 
ne vaut pas la chandelle, even if it were not 
wrong. One can buy all foreign articles cheaper 
in London than in the countries whose produce 
they are ; and I never carry anything but my 
clothes and other personal necessaries. From 
Perthus to Perpignan we travelled all night, 
crammed tightly, four of us, in the banquette, 
and could not move a limb. Never mind, I am 
in France. In France ! and I have left Spain. I 
hope for ever ! We reached Perpignan at about 
four a.m., the other passengers started per night 
train to Paris. I was so weary with seven days 
and nights of travelling by sea or land, I went 
to the Hotel de Commerce, I think it was called ; 
it was the second and farthest hotel seen from 
the omnibus office, where the diligence stopped ; 
and went to bed. I had a clean room, free from 
insect plagues, and slept well, but was not grate- 
ful to the rough rude valet and chamber-maid, 
who against my express desire awoke me early 



BARCELONA TO ' PERPIGJSTAN AND PARIS. 355 

by the noise they made talking and laughing in 
the corridor, and by rapping at my door. One 
misses in all foreign lands the attentive civility 
of English domestics. The landlord told me 
there was a very pretty public walk at Per- 
pignan, so I went to see it. It is a small wood 
of trees (with seats underneath), whose shade the 
fiercest rays of the summer sun cannot pene- 
trate, and in that hot clime, must be invaluable 
to the inhabitants. At one side is a sadly neg- 
lected, but still beautiful botanic garden. I 
noticed one flower, quite new to me, of the 
Solanum species. I had often been laughed at 
for sticking potato blossoms into my bouquets, 
and maintaining they were very beautiful 
flowers. So they are, but that their coarse 
leaves disfigure them, and that the bloom soon 
withers and dies in a nosegay. But here was a 
tree about the average height of a seringa, with 
broad green leaves about the size of orange 
leaves, but in hue and texture resembling those 
of the common woody nightshade, and the 
beautiful white flowers with the pendant orange 
stamens converging to a point, of the potato 
plant. No one could have said a branch of this 
plant was other than exquisitely elegant. How 

A A 2 



356 OVER THE PYRENEES • INTO SPAIN. 

I longed to steal one ! but I did not. I walked 
farther, and met an old priest with whom I en- 
tered into talk about the pretty walk we were 
in, and Perpignan, and my Spanish journey. He 
told me the botanic gardens was once very beau- 
tiful, but that the city authorities now neglected 
it and everything else in Perpignan. The mayor 
was a physician, who was too busy looking after 
his patients to care about the garden. I told 
him of the beautiful solanum, and he walked 
with me to look at it, and gathering a spray 
presented it to me. I dried it, and have it now. I 
told him how rudely I had been treated in Spain. 
4 Ah !' said he, ' but probably it was something 
of a political demonstration, for the French ne 
sont pas trop bien vu en Espagne now, on account 
of the Queen's recognition of Victor Emmanuel, 
which the Spaniards think was forced on her by 
the Emperor ; there is even a strong party against 
them in the mountains.' I do not agree with 
the good old man, but attribute the rudeness I 
met with — so entirely unprovoked by any pecu- 
liarity in dress, or sin against decorum on my 
part ; for, though Spanish gentlemen told me 
I was insulted because I walked alone and 
Spanish ladies never did, I was insulted just as 



BARCELONA TO PERPIG-NA.N AND PARIS. 357 



much when I had a guide with me — to Spanish 
barbarism. 

At three o'clock, I started by train to Cette. 
I found I could not obtain a through ticket from 
Perpignan to Paris, but had to take three several 
tickets, and re-register luggage at Perpignan, 
Cette, and Lyons. When I presented my two 
billets d'enregistrement at Cette, — one for the 
dog, the other for my luggage, both being in the 
same waggon, — the conductor, whom all my fel- 
low passengers had remarked must be new on 
the line, since he could not tell us anything about 
the stations or times of arrival at them, gave me 
my dog, but refused me my luggage, returning 
me the ticket I had given him, and saying I 
should not have it, as it would go by the express 
train to Lyons. I knew he was wrong, but 
what can a woman do against a railway official ? 
I could not get it ; so I could only get a new 
ticket for myself and my dog. I had four hours 
to while away ; I could not leave Cette till 
eight in the evening, so I walked to the town 
to look at the churches. In the basin for holy 
water of one of them, is a frog very well carved. 
I hoped there was some legend about this holy 
frog, but was told it was merely a freak of the 



358 ACROSS THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



workman who carved the original basin, and 
whose frog was so life-like and natural, that 
when the church was repaired, the cure had it 
copied. There is a pretty little square of trees 
and flowers in front of the Bishop's palace, which 
is a fine castellated old building, covered with 
ivy and creepers in many parts. I should have 
liked to have had time to go to the salt lagoons 
we had passed in the train, for I had noticed 
many beautiful and curious plants along their 
edges and that of the railway cutting. A 
botanist would find much to repay him for a 
week or two's sojourn at Cette ; but it was 
growing dusk and I feared to lose the train. I 
did not lose the train, I only lost my carpet-bag. 
When I reached Lyons no luggage was there ! 
The railway officials (unlike most Frenchmen, 
who are generally courteous) were very rude 
and uncivil to me, and laid the whole fault on 
me, as if I had not tendered my billet d'enregis- 
trement to the conductor, and asked for my dog 
and my bag at the same time ! I had to wait 
five hours at Lyons, before I could get a train 
to Paris ; and it was evening; when I again 
started. The trains from Perpignan clo not 
correspond with those going to Paris, and it is a 



BARCELONA TO PEEPIGNAN AXD PAEIS. 359 



most disagreeable route from these delays, and 
the impossibility of taking through tickets to 
Paris, and the annoyance of three changes of 
train, two delays of from five to six hours, and 
three taking of billets and enregistering of 
baggage. I would recommend anyone coming 
from Spain to take the Bayonne route, and 
avoid Perpignan and Lyons. From Lyons I 
had to telegraph for my lost bag ; and I arrived 
at Paris after three days and nights of travelling 
by rail and diligence in hot dusty weather with- 
out a single change of garments. The morning 
after my arrival, my bag arrived, but I had to 
pay nine francs for its transit from Cette to Paris, 
while it would have cost me nothing had it ac- 
companied me, besides the three francs for the 
telegraph message, and the expense of going 
from my lodgings to the Gare de Lyon a Paris, 
to fetch it. Sixteen francs in all for the mistake 
of an employe ! I was very angry, and reclaimed 
the money from the chief director. All in vain. 
There is a homely but true old proverb which 
says, 6 There is no getting butter out of a dog's 
mouth.' I could not get compensation from the 
Lyons Kail way Company, they behaved far less 
honourable than the Barcelona and Saragozza 



360 ACEOSS THE PYRENEES INTO SPAIN. 



Company, when their servant lost me my manu- 
scripts. I said I should write to ; The Times ; ' the 
director said 6 my complaint had been made the 
subject of a special inquiry. No one remembered 
the traveller No. 12 ; ' of course the conductor 
would not criminate himself ; of course there 
was no witness to the fact that I tendered the 
billet, seeing he and I were at that moment alone. 
The proof was, that when I arrived at Paris I 
still had my billet $ enregistrement for the bag- 
gage, while I had not the billet of my dog who 
travelled in the same waggon as the baggage, 
and I asked as I always did, for both a.t the 
same time.* I, at all events, will never travel by 
the Lyons line again. However, I feel too happy 
to grumble, except pro forma, and if possible to 
get my money again. Am I not once more in 

* Haying travelled in France for a period of sixteen months, 
I, of course, knew and complied with the regulations. My 
dog and my carpet-bag always travelled in the same luggage van, 
and when we arrived at a station, I always asked for both at 
the same time. In all my wanderings, never did I lose any 
baggage, exceptthe two times mentioned in this last tour atMan- 
resa in Spain, and at Cette ; and each time through the mistake 
of an official who did not know his duty. I consider, there- 
fore, that the Lyons Railway Company treated me very scurvily 
in making me pay for the mistake of their man. I had nothing 
to pay for the packet lost at Manresa; it was sent on to 
Madrid free of charge. 



BARCELONA TO PERPIGNAN AND PARIS. 361 

beautiful Paris, and out of half-civilised, demora- 
lised Spain ? Shall I not, God willing, soon be 
in England ? Yet I will not close these pages 
without again saying that I have seen much that 
will never be forgotten, and that no scenery I 
ever beheld equals the romantic wild grandeur of 
the Spanish Sierras. Every artist ought to visit 
Spain, for it offers a combination of scenery and 
grouping, and colouring, and peculiar effects of 
light and shade, which would be to him a 
mine of inexhaustible novelty and wealth ; and 
though I should not care greatly to see any of 
the cities, no, not even Sevilla, la maraviglia ; 
if I had father or husbanclfto protect me, I 
know nothing I should like better than to ride 
on mules along all those wild Sierras, from one 
end of Spain to the other. 



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